A TRIP TO MEXICO. 



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ILLUSTRATED. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, $ 



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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 




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To face title page. 



THE AZTEC CALENDAR STONE. 
Built into the outer wall of the Cathedral, City of Mexico. 



TRIP TO MEXICO, 

NOTES OF A JOURNEY FROM LAKE ERIE TO 
LAKE TEZCUCO AND BACK, 

WITH 

AN APPENDIX, 



CONTAINING AND BEING A PAPER ABOUT THE ANCIENT NATIONS AND 

RACES WHO INHABITED MEXICO BEFORE AND AT THE TIME 

OF THE SPANISH CONQUEST, AND THE ANCIENT STONE 

AND OTHER STRUCTURES AND RUINS OF 

ANCIENT CITIES FOUND THERE. 



H. C. E. BECHEE, 

OF OSGOODE HALL, BARRISTER- AT-L AW AND Q.C. 




(Toronto : 
WILLING AND WILLIAMSON. 



MDCCCLXXX. 



Sy^ 




Entered according to Act of Parliament of Canada, in the year one thousand eight 
hundred and seventy-nine, by Henry C. R Becher, of the City of London, in the 
Province of Ontario, in the Office of the Minister of Agriculture. 



PEEFACE. 



j$3SS]HE reasons for publishing the " Trip to 
H.8gj Mexico " are already given. 

The information about Sefior Melgar and his 
discoveries, the possession and study of the large 
photographs, and a seeming absence of general in- 
formation as to the ancient peoples and monuments 
of Mexico, have together induced the writing and 
publication of the Appendix; its subjects having 
for many years been familiar and interesting to me. 
What it describes, for the most part necessarily 
comes from other minds : often the very language 
qf the writer is used. 

It will, it is hoped, be considered as not out of 
place, and will give the reader a correct idea of the 
subjects on which it purports to treat. 

Its publication has been delayed in the hope 



iv PREFACE. 

that the Eight Eeverend Dr. Riley, who has been 
consecrated the Bishop of the Valley of Mexico, 
would contribute to its pages, as to the state of 
his church, &c, but his continued absence on the 
other side of the Atlantic prevents this. I am 
indebted to him for the likeness of President Diaz. 

I have to thank Messrs. Kilburn Brothers, of 
Littleton, N. H., for permission to copy their pho- 
tographs, the pyramid of Cholula, and the vol- 
canoes of Popocatapetl and Iztaccihuatl ; and 
Messrs. Harper Brothers, of New York, for their 
permission to copy engravings in Stephens' books, 
which I have only availed myself of as to the 
hieroglyphics at p. 176. 

I have copied also M. De Waldeck's tower at 
Palenque, and Humboldt's pyramid at Cholula, 
which appear as photographs in the book. With 
these exceptions, and that of the heads at p. 44, 
which are copied from the originals, all the pho- 
tographs are taken, from photographs or prints 
brought with me from Mexico. 



ERRATA. 

At page GO, for Barrow, read Borrow. 
At page 117, for monolinth, read monolith. 
Add, Of the height given, the cofre is 134 feet. 
At page 124, for sapilotes, read sopilotes. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

OF THE LETTERS AND THEIR NOTES. 



Introductory . 



PAGE 

1-6 



Letter No. 1. Start from home — New Orleans — Mardi-Gras 
— Lake Pontchartrain — Leave for Vera Cruz — Opera 
troupe — At sea — Tampico — Tuxpan — Vera Cruz — Rail- 
way time table — Railway fares and map 6-19 

Letter No. 2. Railway train — Guard of soldiers — Depar- 
ture from Vera Cruz — Railway scenery — Cordoba — Bar- 
ranca de Metlac — Arrival at Orizaba — A Journey to a 
water- fall — A Sugar manufactory and a garden — The 
volcano's old name — Scan mag — Description and area 
of Mexico — Its volcanoes — Climate — Toltecs and Aztecs 
— Outlines of Mexican history 19-38 

Letter No. 3. Leave Orizaba — Railway scenery — Out of the 
torrid and within a temperate zone by altitude — Sight 
of the volcano of Orizaba at last— Boca del Monte — Table 
land — Malintzi — Pulque and the maguey plant — Hua- 



vi TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

mantla — Volcanoes of Popocatapetl and Iztaccihuatl — 
Apizaco — Plains of Otumba— Pyramids of San Juan Teo- 
tihuacan — Prescott's account of them — Madame Calde- 
ron's mental vision — Arrival on the shores of lake Tez- 
cuco, and in the city of Mexico 39-50 

"Letter No. 4. City of Mexico — Canals filled up — Receding 
of lakes— Pronunciation of the names of the volcanoes, 
&c. — The streets — The cathedral and where it stands — 
Aztec calendar stone — Great teocali, and the human sa- 
crifices — Pocket-picking, Borrow's Zincali — Guadalupe — 
Its cathedral — The Guardian Saint of Mexico — Santa 
Maria del Pillar, Santa M. del Neve, Santa M. de los 
Remedios — Notes — School of art — Of mines — The Mu- 
seum — Sacrificial stone and god of war there — What 
Cortes saw in the chapels on the teocali — The old mar- 
ket — Streets again — The Alameda — The Paseo — The Cab- 
allero, carriages, and people — Tacubeya — Chapultepec — 
View from it — Plaza de toros — The Empress's Drive — 
Tlanetantla — Foundry for arms — Military college — Rare- 
fied atmosphere and its effects 51-74 

ILetter No. 5. Expedition on the canal — Old church built 
by Corte's — Ixtacalco — Condition of numbers of churches 
— Skulls, &c, in the church-yard — Lakes Chalco and Tez- 
cuco — Hunt for the steamer — The Palace — Hall of the 
ambassadors — Presented to the President — Austrian 
Prince Salm Salm's account of him — The Empress Car- 
lotta's rooms — Arms that killed two Emperors — Popoca- 
tapetl — Religious toleration — Protestant missionaries — 
Native silversmiths — Extract from Madame Calderon — 
Scrap of T 's writing — Opals 50-92 

Letter No 6. Leave city of Mexico for Puebla — Arrival 
— Hotel de Diligentias — The cathedral, &c. — Puebla de 
los Angelos — Onyx marble — Cholula — The great pyra- 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. vii 

PAGE 

mid — Prescott's account of it, and its temple — The Pub- 
lic square — Churches — Return to Puebla — Leave it for 
Orizaba — Arrival and departure from there — Cordoba — 
Arrival at Vera Cruz — Its schools, library, &c. — State of 
Vera Cruz, education, &c 92-107 

Letter No. 7. Leave Vera Cruz for Jalapa— Locomotive 
to Paso de San Juan — Heat— Thence a mule tramway 
— The superintendent — Rinconada to breakfast — Plan 
del Rio — Hacienda and palace of Santa Anna — His char- 
acter and death — Orizaba — The Cofre de Perote — Arrival 
at Jalapa — Village of Coatepec — Cofre de Perote — The 
convent and cathedral at Jalapa — The market — Serapes, 
rebosas, and tilmas described— Feathers and wax-work 
— Rainfall at Jalapa — Balconies and courtship among the 
Mexicans — Leave Jalapa — The Volcano of Orizaba again 
— Arrival at Vera Cruz — A carriage — Sopilotes — Clean- 
liness of Vera Cruz — Hotel de Mexico — El vomito, or 
drunkenness, which ? — Arrival on board the steamship . . 107-1 2(> 

Letter No. 8. A norther — The situation of the ships in 
harbour, and the shoals — The Captain of a U. S. Frigate 
and his Surgeon visit us — The Battle of Dorking — Savant 
in Vera Cruz described — Maximilian had photos, of ruins 
taken — American consul at Vera Cruz has them — Visit 
to the consul — The photos. — Senor J. M. Melgar — Letter 
to Mr. Baldwin — Letter of Dr. Trowbridge, as to Senor 
Melgar, in notes — Return to ship — We sail for New 
Orleans — Catching of sharks — Robbery] and brigandage 
in Mexico — Arrival at New Orleans — Return home 126-141 



A TRIP TO MEXICO. 



BEING NOTES OF A JOURNEY FROM LAKE ERIE TO 
LAKE TEZCUCO AND BACK. 




INTRODUCTORY. 

jjBOUT the middle of February, those who 
are old or out of health have had enough of 
a ( anadian Winter, wish for the warmth of sun- 
shine and the gladness of green trees, and if they 
can, migrate in search of them. Where to go is 
often hard to decide. Florida has been much sought 
after, but we doubt whether anyone ever goes there 
a second time. We know it as a snare, a delusion, 
puffed for the benefit of hotel-keepers, steamboats 
and railways, a swamp, with a base of sand washed 
up from the sea. 

Fernandina, Jacksonville and St. Augustine have 

A 



2 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

generally their yellow fever cases in the summer 
months, each eagerly declaring that the fever comes 
from the others ; the heat however, is moderate, 
and the air balmy in winter ; oranges grow there, 
a fact always brought out strongly ; the climate is 
considered to be good for people with weak lungs ; 
if it be so, we venture to think it is at the expense 
of their livers. Crowds go there however, and try 
hard to admire the country, the " beautiful river 
St. John," and, more than all, the "ancient Spanish 
city of St. Augustine," with its " ancient fort," 
" ancient cathedral " and " ancient gate." 

All these things, as described by the flowing pen 
of Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe and other writers, 
attract shoals of people who are well in health, as 
also those who are not. Would that that lady had 
had as much charity for the memory of a great 
English poet as she has shewn for St. Augustine in 
her glowing description of it ! 

The Ancient Spanish city is a village mostly of 
small modern wooden houses, built on a sand-bank, 
surrounded on the land side by stunted pines and a 



INTRODUCTORY, 3 

swamp, through which the railway roaches it from 
the St. John, while on the sea-side all view is shut 
out by a long sand-bank island with no speck of 
vegetation on it, lying along and within a stone's 
throw of the coast : the ancient cathedral is in 
shape a large barn, with big square windows in its 
sides and ends, and at one end something to hang 
three little bells in. The ancient gate consists of 
its two posts, and the ancient fort is a little stone 
thing in the orthodox shape of forts of a hundred 
years or so ago, not worth crossing the deep sandy 
road to see, unless you have never seen a fort before. 

We had nearly forgotten there was a " plaza," 
which consists of an acre of sand ancle deep, with 
half a dozen handsome trees : but one good thing 
in St. Augustine must be noted, and that is, its 
yacht club-house, (we don't think there were any 
yachts) whose members, if you are a gentleman, 
will offer you the hospitality of their reading room, 
a kindness you cannot fail to be thankful for. 

But if you want to shoot alligators, <jo to Florida ; 
of all places, there they abound ; your bags will be 



4 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

certain and many up the river Ocklawa-ha, a tribu- 
tary of the St. John. The storekeepers of the cities 
have infant alligators captured and sent to them 
from this river for the admiration and purchase of 
tourists from the north. Well we recollect a young 
lady of our party at Jacksonville, looking at half a 
tubful of these abominable little reptiles crunching 
and rattling over each other, addressing them as 
u dear little things '! " 

Bermuda has a delightful winter climate, and is 
cheaply and quickly accessible from New York ; 
and Augusta in Georgia, and many other Southern 
places of winter resort in the United States have 
their advantages, but those we have seen fall sadly 
short of the puffs given to them, and many are 
cold and damp. 

St. Augustine was so much so last January, that 
an invalid Canadian judge left it for Nassau, New 
Providence, where he found a warm dry climate, a 
comfortable hotel* and moderate charges. 

Thirty years ago, we read for the first time Pres- 
cott's charming history of the Conquest of Mexico, 



INTRODUCTORY. 5 

and ever since had strongly desired to visit the land 
and the descendants of the people, he so beautifully 
describes. This desire became much stronger dur- 
ing the early part of last winter. How much better 
it would be, we thought, to go to that wonderful 
country for a winter outing, than in the beaten 
track with its greater expenses and insipidity. 

But many grave considerations were involved : 
probable "Northers," the terror of navigators in 
the Gulf of Mexico ; possible yellow fever at Vera 
Cruz : and, more than all, was Mexico a country to 
take ladies to, and to travel about with % for we are 
tete defamille, and however valiant we might be on 
our own account, we had no right to be so for those 
belonging to us. We made many enquiries : one 
gentleman wrote us from New York, " people here 
laugh at the idea of taking ladies to Mexico ;" but 
the Rev. Dr. Riley, the newly elected Protestant 
Bishop of Mexico, set our doubts at rest, encou- 
raged our going, gave us good advice and letters, 
for all which kindnesses we shall ever feel deeply 
indebted to him. 



6 .4 TRIP TO MEXICO. 

And so it came to pass that our party, consisting 
of four ladies and one gentleman, left their home 
in a city of Western Ontario, not far from the shores 
of Lake Erie, on the 11th February, 1878, intent 
upon getting to Mexico and half way and more 
across the continent, and seeing as much of the 
country and its people as a stay of five or six weeks 
would allow them. 

One of our party wrote letters containing a sort 
of diary describing our tour for the amusement of 
a relative in England, who thinks they would be as 
interesting to many readers as they were to herself, 
and wishes to see them in print; for this reason 
and in the hope that they may, at all events, in- 
terest the many Canadians who go " South : ' to 
avoid the cold of our winter, or, what is worse, that 
of the early spring, they are offered for publication, 
with some additions omitted in the haste of their 
first writing, and here they begin : — 



fetter l* 1. 



Steamship City of Mexico, 

Gulf of Mexico, 18th Feb., 1878. 

My Dear A, — We left Thornwood on Monday 
last the 11th, driving to the station well covered up 
in a sleigh ; such a bright beautiful day, the ther- 
mometer at zero and the snow lying deep every- 
where ! 

We went out of Ontario by Amherstburg at the 
N.W. corner of Lake Erie, where the river Detroit 
flows into it; at six the next morning we were in 
Cincinnati Ohio, at noon in Louisville Kentucky, 
and there we stayed till midnight. Both these 
places are beautiful cities on the river Ohio, sur- 
rounded by a lovely and thickly settled country. 

Getting to and exploring the great Mammoth 
( lave of Kentucky employed us from Tuesday night 
till early Thursday morning, when we left Cave 
City, breakfasting at Nashville in Tennessee, and 
dining at Montgomery in Alabama : our Pullman 
had but few occupants and was very comfortable 



8 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

On Friday morning at 8 o'clock we awoke close 
to New Orleans : it was summer ; on either side of 
the railway brush palms, magnolias, and live oak 
were growing in abundance; and, arrived at the St. 
Charles Hotel, a bouquet of roses and many flowers 
graced our breakfast table. What a change of scene 
and temperature (seventy degrees of Fahrenheit and 
more), between Canada and Monday, and New 
Orleans and Friday ! and, but for loitering on the 
way, we might have been here on Wednesday. 

We were told an opera troupe was going to Vera 
Cruz, and that every berth in the ship was engaged; 
but three of the best state rooms we afterwards 
found were to be had, and we quickly secured them, 
having half an hour before almost given up all hope 
of going at all ; for there was no other ship for 
three weeks, and that delay would have brought us 
to Vera Cruz on our return, at a much later time 
than was prudent to be there. Passage money (one 
hundred dollars each, to Vera Cruz and return) 
paid, there were nearly two days in which to get 
ready, and see something of New Orleans ; but then 
came pressing on me the fact that Spanish was the 
language of Mexico^and that though I believed Senor 
and Senor a and olla-podrida were Spanish, and that 
C and A and L had studied hard at 



NEW ORLEANS. 9 

the language while we stopped at fche St. Thomas 
station and at intervals since, still, all this might 
not be enough ; so we determined to get an inter- 
preter if we could, who would not only save us from 
all trouble on the score of language, but who knew 
something of the country, and who would take care 
of us generally. 

So an advertisement was put in the " Picayune " 
which produced about a hundred applicants of all 
colours, driving the clerks in the St. Charles office 
nearly wild ; but only six or seven of them were 
permitted to see us ; from them we selected one, 
whose testimonials are undoubted, and who is just 
what we want. 

We were so sorry not to be able to wait for the 
carnival, for New Orleans now out- does the world 
in carnival making. There was a mock proclama- 
tion in all the city papers from King Mardi Gras 
to all his loving subjects, commanding what is to be 
done on Shrove Tuesday. 

I have said mock proclamation, but no document 
of that kind from King or Kaiser has been more 
fully obeyed, than will be this of King "Mardi Gras." 
All business will be suspended ; every thoroughfare 
and public place in New Orleans will be given up 
to grave, costly masquerading, mummery, and cle- 



10 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

ver tom-foolery during the whole clay, and ele- 
ments of all these will pervade the many balls, 
parties, and places of public amusement at its 
close. 

We were sorry to leave New Orleans so soon on 
its own account, there is so much to see and ad- 
mire in it ; it is a new and an old, a French and an 
American city in one ; • we must manage to see 
more of it on our return. 

But Lake Pontchartrain was a disappointment ; — 
a melancholy sheet of water with trees on invisible 
banks (so low are they), a light-house and three or 
four little wooden restaurants, where New Orleans 
eats fish dinners, and gets fresh air. 

What a tired lot we were when we went to our 
beds on Saturday night ! but we had done all we 
had to do and were quite ready for our move to the 
ship, and yesterday morning by eight o'clock we 
were all on board bag and baggage, and soon steam- 
ing clown the great Mississippi towards the Gulf of 
Mexico, about a hundred miles distant. We passed 
the mouth of the river earlv in the evening, and to- 
day, as I write, we are about one hundred and eighty 
miles S. W. of it, on our course for Tampico, the first 
Mexican port we touch at, and which we expect to 
reach about daylight on Wednesday ; then comes 



AT SEA. II 

Tuxpan; and on Friday morning, all going well, we 
are to be at Vera Cruz. 

The Gulf is as calm as can be desired, and nearly 
as blue as the Bay of Naples in its best mood. We 
like 1 our ship, our captain, our purser, almost like 
the whole opera troupe, who appear everywhere, 
but we rather wisli they didn't smoke quite so much 
and hadn't quite so many dogs. 

Have they heard, we wonder, of that troupe tra- 
velling in Mexico not many years since who were 
robbed and stripped, and whose prima donna 
parched on a rock, was made to sing her best for 
the amusement of their robbers. 

We have just passed large patches of muddy 
water in a space of about two miles in this deep 
bright blue sea, which cause some speculation among 
the passengers; one, whose nationality is settled at 
once, suggests that the big fishes, &c, are holding 
a democratic meeting, far down below; the captain 
says when lie passed here last, there were patches 
of petroleum on the water; my conclusion is, vol- 
canic disturbances. 

The weather is delicious to us, coming as we do 
from frost and snow; there is a gentle breeze, a sum- 
mer sun; we are steaming with sails up rapidly 
through the water, and thereare no end of Portugu- 



12 A TPJP TO MEXICO. 

ese men of war with their tiny sails up, scudding with 
us: it is so amusing to see these little creatures 
when the wind is too strong for them, trying not to 
upset: and if they do upset to see how cannily they 
get up into the wind, hoist their sail again and speed 
on. The air is soft, the thermometer 7o c , in my 
state room on deck now, at four o'clock, and all our 
present world seems to point to dreaminess and rest; 
certainly if there ever is any rest or comfort in a 
sea voyage it is at its commencement. The awful 
packings up, and land-journeys, and letter- writing, 
and looking after baggage, and the rushes for train 
and ship —all are over; nothing can now be left 
behind, and we have only to be quiet and rest. 

Wednesday, 20th Feb. 

We are well south of the tropic of Cancer, and 
about noon anchor outside the bar of the river 
off Tampico, which is distant seven miles. The 
captain of the little steamer visiting us fears a 
"Norther," and thinks he may not be able to get 
back before it comes, so we don't go to Tampico, 
much as we desire to see it. We have had a gale 

from the S.E. since Monday and C — and A 

and L have suffered much from sea sickness ; 

T as usual, is as placid and undisturbed as the 



TUXPAN. 13 

captain of the ship, but now the weather seems well 
enough, though they will promise the "Norther." 
It is very hot, and myriads of beautifully coloured 
winged beetles and flies come on board while we 
are at anchor; parrots and other bright plumaged 
birds are brought on board for sale. 

Thursday, 21st Feb. 

We left our anchorage about seven last evening, 
and this morning at eight are anchored off Tuxpan. 
We passed on our left the "Havana," a fine steamer 
of this line (the Alexandre of N. York), lying fast 
on a coral reef, on which she ran and became a 
wreck last July. 

The land is high behind and about Tuxpan, and 
we see hills, seemingly of volcanic origin far inland. 
Tuxpan is visible across the bar, a few short miles 
up the river, but we cannot land, for the " Norther " 
may come yet, and thus these two Mexican ports 
are lost to us, and become annoyances, for we must 
stop for freight, and so lose much time. 

There are no harbours, and no lights along the 
coast ; the Alexandre company, we hear, offered 
to place lights on the bars of both the Tampico and 
Tuxpan rivers, and keep them alight on and about 
the days they would be required for their steamers, 



14 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

and advertise them, if the Mexican, government 
would do the rest. 

The matter was discussed in Congress, one of 
whose members proposed to dispose of the question 
by the enactment of a law prohibiting steamers 
from running at night at all ! There are no lights. 

To-morrow morning we are to get to Vera Cruz, 

and if we are up very early, and it is clear, we shall 

see Orizaba, called by sailors the "Star of the Seas," 

from its glistening peak — a respectable mountain, 

more than two thousand feet higher than Mont 

Blanc. 

Friday, 22nd Feb., 8 a.m. 

Here we are at anchor in the harbour of Vera 
Cruz, if a poor anchorage between three shoals can 
be called a harbour. Orizaba was hidden in the 
clouds, and we missed the approach to this place, 
in ignominious sleep. Close on our right is the 
famed castle of San Juan d'Ulloa; above it and 
behind, and to our left, shoals, coral reefs, surf ; in 
front of us the long sea wall, the mole, and the city 
of the True Cross, looking so bright and clean, and 
strange and pretty and foreign ! 

We soon land at the mole, pass the custom house 
close by, with little trouble, and cross a large square 
crowded with mule-carts, Indians and Negroes 



VERA CRUZ. 15 

moving freight from, or to the mole, and are soon 
housed in the Hotel cle Mexico. The bed-rooms 
are after the fashion of the East ; a narrow iron bed- 
stead, no drapery save musquito curtains, a couple 
of chairs and a washing stand form the whole furni- 
ture, and the floor is of brick. The building is three 
stories high, and the halls and passages from the 
ground-floor to the attic, have, instead of floors, 
iron rods or gratings across them to permit the 
circulation of air ; this makes walking about the 
house unpleasant for people who are given to giddi- 
ness or not sure-footed. 

Vera Cruz is soon seen, and one soon tires of 
seeing it ; the streets are narrow, the houses flat- 
roofed, and for the most part low ; but then there 
is the great square, the Plaza de la Constitution, 
with its beautiful tropical trees and plants, and there 
is a fine old church, and the Governor's palace. 
Each street has a gutter trickling down its middle, 
dosed daily with disinfectants, and there is an army 
of buzzards, the scavengers of the place, who perch 
themselves everywhere and anywhere. The eating 
and drinking part of our hotel, the restaurant, is at 
its base, and a distinct ownership, mine host of the 
hotel having nothing to do with it ; this is, we hear, 
the hotel custom all over the country. 



16 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

We went to the railway station, to which, and a 
little beyond it, is a very unnecessary tram or street 
railway, for you can walk through the city in ten 
minutes.' 5 ' The railway station seems all that can be 
desired : outside it and outside the sea wall, is an 
excellent wharf, built by the railway company, in 
fulfilment, we were told, of their agreement with 
the government, and at a large expense. 

Its use to the company and to the public would 
be of great value, but it must not be ! There is a 
large number of men and mules whose constant 
employment is, and long has been, to take freight 
from the mole all round to the railway, and from 
the railway all round to the mole, and if the new 
wharf is used, all this work would be stopped, and 
the men would pronounce ! But this is none of my 
business, which has been to find the railway time- 
table, and here it is, minus the mixed and pulque 
trains : — 



* We afterwards found this was part of the tramroad to Medellin, s 
after the town Cortes was born in. 



RAILWAY TIME TABLE. 



17 



Estaciones. 
(Stations.) 



Vera Cruz 

Tejeria 

Soledad 

< Samaron 

Paso del Macho . 
Paso del Macho . 

Atoyac 

( lordova 

Fortin 

Orizaba 

Orizaba 

Encinal 

Maltrata 

Bota 

Alta Luz 

Boca del Monte . 
Boca del Monte . 

San Andivs 

Rinconada 

San Marcos 

Huamantla 

Apizaco 

Apizaco 

Guadalupe (hacienda). . . 

Soltepec 

Apam 

Irolo 

Ometusco 

LaPalma 

Otumba 

San Juan Teotihuacan , 

Tepexpan 

Mexico 



DISTANT [AS. 



kilome- 
tros. 
(kilom 



.203|. 



,223|. 
24lf. 
.259 . 
.284fc. 
.2S4^. 
.2991. 
.3llJ. 
.331 . 



.346*. 
.356}. 
.362|. 
.368£. 

.380 . 
.3911. 
.423|. 



mi lias 
inglesas. 

miles.) 



...M. 

. 26 . 
. 39±. 

. 17! ■ 
. 47i. 
. 53|. 

','. i'of. 

. 82 . 
. 82 . 
. 88£. 
. 944. 
. 97£. 
.103". 

.107±.. 
.107£. 
.1261.. 
.139 . 
.160^., 
.161 .. 
.1763., 

.176f.. 
.186i. 
.1924.. 
.205}.. 
.215}., 
.2211.. 
.225|.. 
.229 .. 
.23(5 . 
.243 .. 
.263£. 



Tit. MX TO 

Mi \k ... 



noche. 

.12 00 
.12 45 
..1 45 
..2 45 
..:; 15 
..3 30 
..4 00 
. ( 55 
..5 30 
..6 20 
. .6 35 



.7 30 



i 00 



. .9 40 
.10 40 
.11 15 
.11 50 
.12 30 
..1 20 



..1 50 
..2 30 
..3 00 
..3 40 
..4 10 
..4 35 
..4 50 



.5 05 
.5 25 
.5 50 
.6 50 





Trenes a 


Puebla. 






Estaciones. 


Distancias 
en kilomts. 


Distancias 
en mis. ing. 


THEN 

DE MEXICO 


TREN DE 
VERA CRUZ. 


APIZACO 


16| 

35 

47 


104 

12| 
29i 


mana. 

5 30 

6 10 

6 50 

7 20 


tarde. 

1 55 

2 35 




3 15 


PUEBLA 


3 45 



18 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

To get to Puebla we shall have to come back to 
Apizaco, from whence there is a branch railway — 
time, about two hours to Puebla. 

The railway fare, first class to Mexico is sixteen 
dollars ; second, twelve ; third, eight dollars ; about 
thirty pounds of luggage is allowed free : beyond 
this we were charged about as we should be in 
Italy. 

I send you a tiny map of the railway, shewing the 
country, towns, lakes, and mountains about it ; the 
railway laid down on it to Jalapa, however, is only 
a railway proper to San Juan, eighteen miles out 
from Vera Cruz ; beyond that, it is worked by 
mules. 

As far as the eye can reach, Vera Cruz is sur- 
rounded on the land side by a barren deep sandy 
plain ; a few miles along the coast to the south how- 
ever, a tramway takes you to an oasis, a place 
called Medellin, where a river flows into the gulf 
and makes a watering, gambling, dancing, holiday 
resort for Vera Crtizans in the season, which is not 
now. 

We did not go there ; indeed my great desire in 
coming to Vera Cruz is to get out of it and its neigh- 
bourhood as quickly as possible, for the reason that 
there is never a certainty that yellow fever is not 




TO FACE PAGE EIGHTEEN 



VERA CIU V.. 19 

present ; but Vera Cruzans laugh at one's fears of 
fever. You shall hear more of Vera Cruz on our 
return to it. 

The heat is oppressive, the air close, we are im- 
patient for the night and the train that is to take us 
up into the mountains, and to a fresher, purer atmos 
pi 1 ere. My next letter will be from somewhere 
between this and the great table land, more proba- 
bly from the ancient city of Mexico. 



§ttUv io. 2. 




Hotel de Diligentias, Orizaba, 

23rd February, 1878. 

jN Mexico, every passenger train carries 
soldiers to guard it, and when we got to 
the station last night, there were some twenty-five 
men mustered to come with us, small, lithe, wiry. 
Aztecs, their uniform more French than anything 
else : each man with his serape striped in many 
bright colours, and so carrying it, or wrapped in it, 
as to make himself a striking picture to new 
comers. The whole squad, as they stood at ease on 
the platform, chatting and smoking, waiting for the 
order to get into their appointed carriages, with 
the strong gas-light gleaming upon their arms and 
accoutrements, made up a group not easily to be 
forgotten. 

The first-class carriages are English, and Ave 
had one to ourselves, wishing in vain for a Pull- 
man : we left punctually at midnight, and just then 
came the " Norther," so long threatened on board 



THE RAILWAY— C01W0BA—F011TIN. 21 

the ship: the gale was very hard, and the effect was 
to iill the air with clouds of sand from the desert we 
were passing over, a good deal of it finding its way 
somehow into the carriage, though the windows 
were all closed. In a couple of hours we were out of 
it, protected as we supposed by higher land, for we 
could see nothing. The night became close and hot, 
the air laden with perfumes from blossom or leaf 
invisible to us, which at intervals were so power- 
fully sweet as to be oppressive : how we longed to 
see what we were passing as the train took us con- 
tinually upwards ! We could now and then make 
out the figure of a tall palm against the sky, or we 
thought we could, which did as well. About five 
in the morning Ave arrived at the Cordoba station ; 
still all is darkness ; Indian women bring us tortil- 
la- and strange fruits, and oranges, bananas, and 
pineapples at infinitesimal prices. We go on; the 
train seems to descend, and soon we are at the next 
station, Fortin, which is on the left bank of the 
barranca de Metlac : barranca means a ravine, or 
I should say, according to our ideas of ravines, a 
great many of them put into one. Day has dawned ; 
we run along the precipice forming the side of the 
barranca. Far below at its bottom is a silver 
ribbon, the 4 river ; rock, and rich rank vegetation arc 



22 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

above, below, on all sides of us. We run through 
tunnels to come out upon ledges, overhanging 
more precipices, till all of a sudden the train is 
on what we are told is the great Metlac viaduct. 
We are all on our feet, astonished, almost alarmed : 
We seem to be on stilts high up in the air. Sud- 
denly, quietly, the train turns to the right, crossing 
the barranca on a curve, which takes it to the op- 
posite side, turned to the right about. We are soon 
off the viaduct, running along more ledges and 
through tunnels on the side of the barranca opposite 
to the one we have left, but in the same direction 
from which we came. We catch our breath : it has 
all been very grand, very startling, but it is over, and 
we are out of the barranca (whose greatest width 
is 900 feet, depth o75 feet) and with broader day- 
light enter upon the valley of Sumidero, wherein is 
the City of Orizaba, the ancient Ahaulizapan. And 
now our conversation becomes interjectional ; the 
scene before us seems a work of enchantment, so 
suddenly does it appear to us, and so strangely and 
perfectly beautiful is it. Beyond and about us 
is an immense undulating plain surrounded by 
lofty mountains, and here and there so narrowed 
by them, as almost to be lost, but coming out wider 
in the far distance, to be nearly lost again, and at 



THE VALLEY OF SUMIDEllO, ORIZABA. 23 

last completely shut in : everywhere are to be seen 
brilliant varying shades of green, here and there 
houses, churches, odd-looking buildings, and always 
in the moving foreground the rich foliage of tropical 
trees and shrubs : add to this the brightest, loveliest 
early morning that ever shone, and there is a scene 
that, while it somewhat bewildered, charmed the 
sight and senses of the party who, but twelve short 
days before, were shut up amid ice and snow, where 
no green leaf was to be seen. The train now runs 
swiftly, and we are soon at the Orizaba station. 
Some excellent coffee and a roll, and we get into an 
elderly ricketty carriage, drawn by a pair of mules, 
on our way to the town : a drive of a mile brings 
us into the long principal street : the houses are 
good and of stone ; the lower windows are pro- 
tected by projecting iron bars, forming a sort of 
cage outside the embrasure, Spanish fashion, and 
from within them dark-eyed women and children 
gaze at us as we pass. We are soon established in 
our rooms and attain baths, cleanliness and rest. 
Orizaba is named after the great volcano, some 25 
miles distant from it : it has twenty-two thousand 
inhabitants, many churches, some manufactories of 
cotton, and coarse cloth, a high, and many other 
schools, and a river : it is very picturesque, is well 



24 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

built, and is about four thousand feet above the sea. 
It has, it is said, a delightful climate all the year 
round, a happy medium between the abominable 
hot lands below, and the perhaps too rarified air of 
the table land above. 

Taking a late breakfast, we are agreeably sur- 
prised at meeting the Hon. Mr. de S — and Mr. G — : 
they are going to see a waterfall, a sugar mill, and 
a wonderful garden, and want us to go too ; the 
first I object to, as taking Canadians to see a water- 
fall seems like taking Newcastle people to see 
coals : but we go, and are so glad we did, though 
the waterfall is four or five miles off. I send you a 
photograph of it, but it can give you no idea of its 
beauty : it is a series of bright thick cascades jump- 
ing and foaming from beneath a heavy fringe of 
tropical foliage, and tumbling down a rocky bank, 
dotted with lichens, maiden hair and other ferns. 
In front of it is a lovely little woody glen with the 
rapid stream from the fall rushing through it. We 
have looked in vain for Orizaba ; he is too high to 
be seen always with the commonalty of mountains, 
and we must wait patiently for some clearness in 
his high atmosphere. We next visited the sugar 
manufactory, and were obligingly shown all over it. 
We saw the whole process from the cane going in 



GARDEN OF SENOR MAUIXGA. 25 

at one end, to the sugar loaf coming out at the 
other. And then we drove to the garden of many 
acres, of Senor Maringa : there were flowers with- 
out end, those shown with the most pride, and re- 
ceiving the least notice from us, being English. 
There were the orange, the lemon, the banana, the 
olive, the almond, the coffee shrub, all growing 
luxuriantly. I must not forget some mango-trees 
with the fruit just formed, almost as big as peas. I 
was disappointed, for I hoped to eat mangoes before 
leaving the country ; but Ave were told there were 
plenty ripening and ripe in the hot lands below, 
these, their relatives, being in a much less stimulat- 
ing climate. 

The coffee bushes and their flowers and fruit 
surprised us with their beauty : but what we most 
admired were the hundreds of orange trees laden 
with delicious fruit and covered with blossoms : 
there was perhaps too much of their fragrance. 
We thought we had seen these trees in their per- 
fection — in Sicily and Malta, but Senor Maringa's 
garden has undeceived us. We ate and carried off 
as many as we chose, and agreed that we had not 
quite known before what oranges were. 

On our return from a drive of ten miles or so, I 
took L — to see the inside of the cathedral, which is 



26 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

rather tawdry : it is the first thing of the kind she 
has ever seen, and it does not impress her much. 

In the City of Mexico we are told there is one 
church more imposing in its interior even than the 
great St. Peter's ; nous verrons. 

Being so near the great mountain Orizaba re- 
minds me of a shocking scandal about him, and a 
near lady mountain, Iztaccihuatl (the ivhite woman) 
wife of Popocatepetl {smoking mountain), which I 
read on board the ship, in a funny English trans- 
lation of a Spanish book, giving an account of the 
building of this railway. 

The scandal was handed down from the Toltecs : 
Cortes must have heard it, and been pained at the 
state of mountain morality it indicated. 

It seems from the story that Orizaba's name at 
the time, whenever that was, was Citlalteptl, and he, 
being then a much nearer neighbour flirted a good 
deal and very improperly with Iztaccihuatl, who, 
forgetting her high position, encouraged him and 
flirted outrageously too. Naturally, her husband 
did not like it, and he told her so ; but the more he 
didn't like it, the more she carried on, till at last 
Popocatepetl, following Othello's example, if Othello 
had lived then, and if not, from his own mere moun- 
tainous jealousy and cussedness, kills her — how, the 



SCANDALUM MAGNATIM. 27 

scandal-monger does not say. Citlalteptl (which his 
name is now Orizaba, and that change of name is 
a suspicious circumstance) seems thereupon, to have 
run away — fancy eighteen thousand feet running 
away ! — for the story says that " dumb with con- 
sternation, he is destroyed in his wild flight," while 
poor Popocatepetl becomes " a victim to remorse, 
and is frozen to death near the corpse of his victim, 
to weep over his crime eternally." 

The story is a sad one, and of course it is not for 
me to say it is not true; but there is this strange 
circumstance in it, that Popocatepetl having been 
frozen stiff and dead, should weep eternally, or in- 
deed weep at all. Perhaps a near view of these three 
parties may enable me to form a correct judgment 
about the whole story. I have always had a high 
opinion of the Andes (specially), and of mountains 
generally, and hope it is untrue. 

I have been scribbling nonsense at a great rate, 
and now it occurs to me to be serious, and give you 
as shortly as I can, some account of the country and 
its history. 

Everybody is in bed and asleep, the house is 
quiet. I have some notes with me, a good memory, 
as to much information I have been gobbling up 
for weeks past about Mexico ; and besides, I am in 



28 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

it, so that what I tell you will have much additional 
importance, and enable you the better to under- 
stand my letters. Read then if you like, skip if you 
don't, what I am now about to write to you. 

Mexico, as it now is, forms the north part of 
Central America ; on its north lie Texas, New 
Mexico, Arizona, Upper California ; on its west is 
the Pacific Ocean ; on its east the Gulf of Mexico ; 
on the south it is bounded by Guatemala and Bri- 
tish Honduras. 

Its area is about seven hundred and forty-four 
thousand square miles ; its population between 
nine and ten millions, about one-half being pure 
Indians, the remainder Spanish and other European 
races, half-breeds, negroes, and others. 

About half the country is within the limits of the 
temperate zone, the other between the tropics ; 
about its centre is that vast plateau, the table land, 
in parts from six to eight thousand feet above the 
sea ; along this plain, which is formed by their ex- 
pansion, runs from north-west to south-east, a lofty 
chain of mountains, part of the great range of the 
Andes, 

On a fissure running across the continent, on or 
close to the nineteenth parallel of south latitude, 



GEOGRAPHY, HISTORY, ETC., OF MEXICO. 29 

are the following volcanoes, the height of which, in 
feet above the sea, I give from Humboldt : 



Orizaba - - - 


- 17,879 


Iztaccihuatl - - 


- 15,705 


Popocatepetl - 


- 17,726 


Toluca - - - 


- 15,168 


Colima - - - 


- 12,005 


Jorullo - - - 


- 4,265 



This last is a youthful mountain ; it only came 
into existence in the year 1759, and was then sud- 
denly shot up, like Jack-in-the-box, out of a "broad 
and long peaceful plain." 

The Cofre de Perote, 13,553 feet above the sea, 
Humboldt does not consider a true volcano. 

The tableland slopes more or less abruptly on 
the east to the Gulf of Mexico, on the west to the 
Pacific. 

The Spaniards, on coming to the country, distin- 
guished the lowlands, along the coast, as the tier- 
ras calientes, hot or littoral lands ; the range higher 
up, as the tier r as templadas, temperate lands ; and 
the range above them again, as the tierras frias, 
cold lands ; and this classification with its names is 
still retained. 



30 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

It is easy to understand what difference of climate 
must follow these differences of altitude, and that 
the flora of Mexico must comprehend almost all the 
vegetable products of the world, and that (I quote 
Prescott), "in the course of a few hours the traveller 
may experience every gradation of climate, embra- 
cing torrid heat and glacial cold, and pass through 
different zones of vegetation, including wheat and 
the sugar cane, the ash and the palm, apples, olives 
and guavas." 

The Toltecs were the first inhabitants of Mexico ; 
they came " somewhere from the north," nobody 
knows where, bringing with them some degree of 
civilization, and possessed the country up to the end 
of the twelfth century, when they disappeared as 
mysteriously as they had come. 

They had good laws and a harmless religion, and 
these seem to have been adopted, though much bar- 
barized, by the Aztecs, who took possession of the 
country upon their departure. 

The Aztecs are said to have come from the north 
too, but it seems more probable that both races 
came from another continent, for all the Indians of 
the north, in America, have always been savages, 
pure and simple, with no trace of any knowledge 
or art that Toltec or Aztec possessed. The Toltec 



TENOCHTITLAN FOUNDED. 31 

never was a savage, and the Aztec only in his reli- 
gion, and its frightful human sacrifices. 

' ' Far away 
Yuhidthiton led forth the Aztecas, 
To spread in other lands Mexitli's name, 
And rear a mightier empire, and set up 
Again their foul idolatry ; till Heaven, 
Making blind zeal and bloody avarice 
Its ministers of vengeance, sent among them 
The heroic Spaniards' unrelenting sword." 

Sovtheys Madoc. 

The Aztecs founded the City of Tenochtitlan or 
Mexico, in the year 1325, inspired in the selection 
of its site by seeing an eagle on the shore of the 
Lake Tezcuco perched on a cactus, holding a ser- 
pent in his talons, his wings spread to the rising 
sun. They took this as pointing to where their 
future capital should be. The legend is preserved 
in the Arms of Mexico to the present day. 

The Aztecs remained, and were the possessors of 
the country, under the rule of their king, Monte- 
zuma, when Cortes invaded it in 1519 ; their go- 
vernment ceased with his conquest, but they have 
ever since occupied the country, and are now, and 
have been since its separation from Spain, the 
governing race. 

In 1540, Mexico was united with other Spanish 
territories, under the name of New Spain, and was 



32 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

governed by Spanish Viceroys until 1810, when 
long discontent turned into open rebellion. Itur- 
bide, one of the later leaders of this revolution, 
achieved great successes over the Spaniards, and 
really brought about the independence of the coun- 
try, and, in 1822, was proclaimed Emperor. He 
was, however, quite unfitted to control or reduce 
the anarchy that prevailed, and in 18?3 abdicated, 
retiring to Italy, where he agreed to remain. 

The divisions in Mexico induced his return in 
1824, without waiting for an answer to a letter he 
had written to the Congress, offering his services as 
an officer of the government merely, in restoring 
order. 

This letter was read in Congress, and its writer 
proclaimed an outlaw. Ignorant of this, he arrived 
at Vera Cruz, with much regal paraphernalia, was 
seized, and within a week shot, and i( buried like a 
dog." 

Before the departure of its first emperor, a repub- 
lican form of government had been adopted upon 
the principle of that of the United States, and, in 
1824 the independence of Mexico was recognised by 
all governments except those of Brazil and Spain ; 
Brazil acknowledged its independence in 1830, 
Spain in 1836. 



OUTLINES OF MEXICAN HISTORY. 33 

The main outlines of Mexican history since, are 
as follow : 

1845. War with the United States commences, 
which terminates in 1848 by General 
Scott taking the City of Mexico by as- 
sault, followed by a treaty of peace, ceding 
to the Government of the United States, 
New Mexico, Upper California, and 
Texas, the last two lost to Mexico long 
before. 

1853. Santa Anna, who had been more than once 
elected President, made Dictator. 

1855. Santa Anna abdicates ; Carera elected 

President ; he abdicates, and is succeeded 
first by Alvarez, and afterwards by Gen- 
eral Comonfort. 

1856. Property of the clergy sequestrated. 

1857. New Constitution established : Comonfort 

chosen President. 

1858. Coup d'etat; Constitution annulled by 

church party, Comonfort compelled to 
retire, and General Zuloaga takes the 
government ; Benito Juarez declared 
Constitutional President at Vera Cruz ; 
Civil War. 

1859. General Miguel Miramon nominated Pre- 



34 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

sident at Mexico by the Junta ; Zulqaga 
abdicates. 
1859. Juarez confiscates the church property. 

1861. Miramon having been defeated, Juarez en- 

ters Mexico, is re-elected President, and 
made Dictator by the Congress. 
" Gross outrages on foreigners in Mexico, 
and a partial repudiation of its debt, 
induce the Governments of England, 
France and Spain to act together towards 
compelling redress ; Spanish troops land 
at Vera Cruz, and it surrenders. 

1862. The British and French forces arrive at 

Vera Cruz. 

" Project for establishing a Mexican mon 
archy, to be filled by the Archduke Maxi 
milian, brother of the Emperor of Austria, 
disapproved of by British and Spanish 
Governments. 

" Conference at Orizaba; the English and 
Spanish are satisfied and withdraw their 
forces ; the French remain and declare 
war against Mexico. 

1863. Juarez and his Government retire to San 

Luis de Potosi ; City of Mexico occupied 



OUTLINES OF MEXICAN HISTORY. 35 

by Marshal Bazaine ; General Forey, 
who had before appropriated both mili- 
tary and civil power at Vera Cruz, enters 
Mexico with his army. 

1863. A Provisional Government is formed in 

the City of Mexico. 
" Assembly of notables at Mexico decide on 
the establishment of a limited hereditary 
monarchy with a Roman Catholic prince 
as emperor, and offer the crown to the 
Archduke Maximilian. 

1864. The Archduke having accepted the offer, 

lands at Vera Cruz as Emperor of Mexico, 
with the Empress ; Oaxaca surrenders to 
Marshal Bazaine. 

1865. The Emperor Maximilian proclaims the 

end of the war with France, and martial 
law against all armed bands of men, 
under which latter proclamation Juarist 
generals are taken prisoners and shot. 
" The United States Government protests 
against the French occupation of Mexico. 

1866. The Emperor Napoleon agrees to with- 

draw all his troops by November, 1867 ; 
guerilla warfare going on between the 



36 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

imperialist and liberal parties, and Mata- 
moras and Tampico are taken by the 
latter. 

1866. The Empress Carlo tta leaves for France ; 

she solicits help there in vain. 

1867. Maximilian leaves the City of Mexico and 

at the head of his army arrives at Quere- 
taro. 

" The liberals take Queretaro by the treach 
ery of Miguel Lopez, an officer of the 
imperial army; after a trial by court- 
martial, they shoot the Emperor Maxi- 
milian, Miramon and Mejia there. 

" The City of Mexico taken by the liberals 
after 67 days' siege ; Vera Cruz sur- 
renders ; the Republic is re-established ; 
Santa Anna is banished ; Juarez re- 
elected President. 
1872. Juarez re-elected President ; insurrection ; 
civil war headed by Diaz, which is nearly 
subdued when Juarez dies ; the country 
becomes tranquil, and Diaz accepts am- 
nesty ; Lerdo is elected President. 

" Railway from Vera Cruz to Mexico com- 
pleted. 



OUTLINES OF MEXICAN HISTORY. 37 

1876. Lerdo is re-elected President, but there is 
a revolution, and on the 4th March, 1877, 
General Porfirio Diaz is proclaimed as 
his successor, and is still President of the 
Republic. 

I have left out many names, many events, many 
revolutions, and countless insurrections that should 
appear even in my little outline, but you will be 
thankful for their omission. As to the revolutions, 
they are the usual, it would almost be fair to say 
the constitutional, method, of changing the Govern- 
ment in Mexico ! 

Beautiful, unhappy country, what turmoil, rob- 
bery, oppression, bloodshed, misgovernment, it has 
gone through since its Spanish conquerors first dis- 
turbed its peace ! If they initiated all this — and 
who can say they did not 1 — they also brought with 
them Christianity, and to expound and inculcate its 
meaning, many of the ecclesiastics of their time, 
(and pious good men they were), not forgetting the 
Inquisition, which they established on the shores 
of Lake Tezcuco with a branch much enlarging its 
business at Puebla. But all this, and all that has 
followed in three centuries and a half and more, 
has left its people seemingly yet unfit, rightly to 
govern their country or themselves. 



38 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

As to the gold and silver, the mines and minerals, 
and its other products and sources of wealth, I 
refer you to the geographies and cyclopaedias. 

You should read Madame Calderon de la Barca's 
charming book, again Prescott's ; and there is Sir 
Arthur Helps' book, quite new, compared to the 
others. 



frtter £to. 3, 




Hotel Iturbide, City of Mexico, 
25th February. 
j|E got here last night, and as my last letter 
was from Orizaba, I give you the diary — 
much of which is addressed to you, shew- 
ing our journey here. 

24th Feb. 
We leave Orizaba this morning at half-past six. 
The most interesting and beautiful parts of this 
wonderful railway are between Orizaba and Boca 
Del Monte, before arriving at which place the sta- 
tions of Encinal, Maltrata, Bota, and Alta Luz are 
passed. We run through the valley of Encinal, 
which is much higher than that of Orizaba, and en- 
ter the gorges of the Infiernillo (little hell) and 
Second Infiernillo ; emerging from thence, the train 
passes into the valley and among the beautiful moun- 
tains of Maltrata, and then up and up, round and 
round, but always ascending, till we look down upon 
peaks and clouds. Often the mountain wall on one 



40 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

side of us is within a few feet of the carriage win- 
dow, while just outside the other is a precipice of a 
thousand feet. We are now out of the torrid, and 
well within the temperate zone, not by latitude, but 
by altitude ; look across the deep valley on our left : 
on the mountain side above it, is a forest of pines, 
reminding us of the land of our home. Flowers are 
in abundance on either side of us, and we breast 
the ascent so slowly, and are so close to them fre- 
quently, as to see their full forms and many shades 
of colour distinctly as we pass. I note here that 
the Fairleigh locomotive is a wonder of power and 
fitness for its work ; without it they could not work 
this railway, its gradients are so steep, its curves 
so sharp. Soon we stop at, and pass, Alta Luz — 
but look, oh look ! there at last is Orizaba — immense, 
calm, majestic ; in shape, reminding us of Etna ! 
The train runs faster, and attains soon something 
like level ground : we are (I quote Prescott) " on 
the summit of the cordillera of the Andes — the 
colossal range, that after traversing South America 
and the Isthmus of Darien, spreads out as it enters 
Mexico into that vast sheet of table land which main- 
tains an elevation of more than six thousand feet 
for the distance of nearly two hundred leagues, un- 
til it gradually declines in the higher latitudes of 



BOCA DEL MONTE. 41 

the north." We arrive at the station of Boca del 
Monte (month of the mountain), about nine o'clock, 
very cold, but 'a great breakfast, beginning with 
soup, going on with many courses, ending with a 
strange sweetmeat made from honey, and some ex- 
cellent coffee, makes us forget it, and in half an hour 
we are pursuing our journey. Boca del Monte is 
8,326 feet above the sea, much higher than the val- 
ley of Mexico, so that we have to descend on our way 
there. We have already seen infinitely more than 
repays us for the long journey Ave have taken — even 
the last three hours were more than enough to do 
that. Were we to turn back now, we should be 
thankful that we came : shall we be more so as we 
go on \ 

The country is now tame, uninteresting, but for 
three hours or more we keep Orizaba in sight ; and 
soon on the left Malintzi, another snow-capped 
mountain, named by the Indians after Cortez and 
his Indian mistress, who so much aided his conquest 
(they called both Malintzi), appears. It is a great, 
big, beautiful mountain, but not so imposing as its 
three volcanic neighbours, only because it is not 
so tall as they are, by some two or three thou- 
sand feet, and they are its close neighbours. The 
immense plain right and left, behind and in front of 



42 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

us as far as the eye can reach, is planted with endless 
rows of maguey, the great Mexican aloe, from which 
the national drink, pulque, is made. Some idea of the 
magnitude of the pulque trade may be inferred, from 
the fact, that there is a daily train on the railway be- 
tween Mexico, Puebla and Vera Cruz, used exclu- 
sively in its transport all the year round. But the 
use of the maguey does not end with pulque ; a 
spirit is distilled from pulque, in taste something 
between a pleasing liqueur and Scotch whiskey; 
good vinegar is made from stale pulque ; the thick 
roots of the maguey are used by the Indians in place 
of soap ; brushes are made from the base of its 
prickly leaves ; twine and paper from its fibres ; 
the dry parts of the leaves serve as hones for sharp- 
ening razors : textures are made from its filaments, 
and its sprouts when young, are eaten half roasted. 
I learn from the Spanish book about the railway 
that " with justice Father Acosta gave the maguey 
the name of the 'miraculous plant.' "* At half-past 
one we stop at Apizaco, but long before reaching it 
Popocatapetl and Iztaccihuatl have been in view — 
solemn and grand, their icy peaks glistening in the sun. 



* I have omitted to notice the town of Huamantla, which we passed about an 
hour before reaching Apizaco, probably because we were engrossed with Ma- 
lintzi, which is close to it. 



THE PLAIN OF OTUMBA. 43 

How very big they are !— and yet, perhaps, not 
looking so much so as we expected, for some seven 
thousand feet of their height is between the plain 
from which they rise and the sea. 

We pass over the plain of Otumba, where Cortes, 
on his retreat, a few days after his expulsion from 
Mexico, defeated some two hundred thousand 
Mexicans, " by his single arm," saving his whole 
army from destruction ; and for many miles before 
reaching the little village of San Juan Teoti- 
huacan, we see before us two high mounds of py- 
ramidal form, clothed in green by the trees and 
shrubs on their sides, one much larger than the 
other ; we seem close to them as we stop at the 
station, but they are really some miles off. There 
is no fit accommodation near, and the only way to 
visit them will be to come from Mexico, from which 
they are distant only twenty-eight miles, in the 
morning, returning in the evening. Indian women 
and children bring us rough images — heads of terra 
cotta, and obsidian arrow-heads, turned up by the 
plough in the neigbourhood of the pyramids, to the 
train, for sale. We buy a number of them; they 
are very rude, but many of the faces have much cha- 
racter and beauty ; strange to say, no two are alike, 
and we are told no two of them are ever found alike. 



44 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

There is no doubt of their genuineness. * I am 
tempted to transcribe for you Prescott's account of 
these pyramids : 

" The monuments of San Juan Teotihuacan are, 
with the exception of the temple of Cholula, the 
most ancient remains probably on the Mexican soil. 
They were found by the Aztecs, according to their 
traditions, on their entrance into the country, when 
Teotihuacan (the habitation of the gods), now a paltry 
village, was a flourishing city, the rival of Tula, the 
great Toltec capital. The two principal pyramids 
were dedicated to Tonatiuh the Sun and Meztli the 
Moon. The former, which is considerably the 
larger, is six hundred and eighty-two feet long at 
the base, and one hundred and eighty feet high, di- 
mensions not inferior to those of some of the kin- 
dred monuments of Egypt.f They were divided in- 
to four stories, of which three are now discernible, 
while the vestiges of the intermediate gradations are 
nearly effaced. 

" The interior is composed of clay mixed with 
pebbles, incrusted on the surface with light porous 
stone. Over this was a thick coating of stucco, re- 



* Some of these heads, as we stuck them in the top of a biscuit box, were 
photographed on our return home, and are published with these letters. 

f " The pyramid of Mycerinos is 280 feet only at the base, and 162 feet high ; 
<Cheops is 728 feet at the base, and 448 feet high," — Note from Prescott. 



PYRAMIDS OF SAN JUAN TEOTIHUACAN. \r> 

sembling in its reddish colour that in the ruins of 
Palenque. According to tradition, the pyramids 
are hollow, but hitherto the attempt to discover the 
cavity in that dedicated to the Sun has been unsuc- 
cessful. 

" In the other an aperture has been found in the 
southern side at two-thirds of the elevation. 

" It is a narrow gallery, which, after penetrating 
several yards, terminates in two pits or wells, the 
largest about fifteen feet deep, the sides faced with 
unbaked bricks, but to what purpose devoted nothing 
is left to show. 

" It may have been to hold the ashes of some 
powerful chief, like the solitary apartment in the 
great Egyptian pyramid. That these monuments 
were dedicated to religious uses there is no doubt ; 
and it would only be conformable to the practice of 
antiquity in the Eastern continent, that they should 
have served for tombs as well as temples. 

" Distinct traces of the latter destination are said 
to be visible on the summit of the smaller pyramid, 
consisting of the remains of stone walls, shewing a 
building of considerable size and strength. There 
are no remains on the top of the pyramid of the 
Sun. 

" The summit of this larger mound is said to have 



46 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

been crowned by a temple, on which was a colossal 
statue of its presiding deity, the Sun, made of one 
entire block of stone, and facing the East. 

" On its breast was a plate of burnished gold and 
silver, on which the first rays of the rising luminary 
rested. 

" It was still standing, according to report, on the 
invasion of the Spaniards, and was demolished by 
the indefatigable Bishop Zumarraga, whose hand 
fell more heavily than that of Time itself on the 
Aztec monuments. Around the principal pyramids 
are a great number of smaller ones, rarely exceed- 
ing thirty feet in height, which, according to tradi- 
tion, were dedicated to the stars, and served as 
sepulchres for the great men of the nation. They 
are arranged symmetrically in avenues, terminat- 
ing at the sides of the great pyramids, which face the 
cardinal points. The plain on which they stand was 
called Micoati, or 'path of the dead.' But who 
were the builders ? What has become of the races 
who built them % It is all a mystery, over which 
Time has thrown an impenetrable veil that no mor- 
tal hand may raise. A nation has passed away- 
powerful, populous, and well advanced in refine- 
ment — but it has perished without a name. It has 
died and made no sign." 



THE VALLEY OF MEXICO. 47 

Recent excavations show that the country all 
round these pyramids for a considerable distance is 
full of small tombs like those about the Egyptian 
pyramids. It is not an unreasonable belief that 
this neighbourhood may have been the Memphis of 
an immense city peopled by this long lost race. 

We soon looked down upon " the great valley 
celebrated in all parts of the world, with its frame 
work of everlasting mountains, its snow-crowned 
volcanoes, great lakes, and fertile plains, all sur- 
rounding the favoured city of Montezuma," and we 
strained our eyes to see it and the many towers and 
spires of the yet distant city ; but it was getting 
darkish ; still we might have given the reins to our 
imaginations, as Madame Calderon (from whom I 
quote) did, when she first viewed the wonderful 
panorama before us, and produced something in the 
way of mental vision ; but we didn't, perhaps be 
cause we were rather tired with our day's work, and 
her vision was already before us, and far better than 
anything we could spirit up. Here it is : " But as 
we strained our eyes to look into the valley, it all 
appeared to me more like a vision of the Past than 
the actual breathing Present. The curtain of Time 
seemed to roll back, and to discover to us the great 
panorama that burst upon the eye of Cort6s when 



48 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

he first looked down upon the table land — the king- 
loving, god-fearing conqueror, his loyalty and reli- 
gion so blended, after the fashion of ancient Spain 
that it were hard to say which sentiment exercised 
over him the greater sway. The city of Tenoch tit- 
Ian, standing in the midst of the five great lakes, 
upon verdant and flower-covered islands, a western 
Venice, with thousands of boats gliding swiftly along 
its streets, long. lines of low houses, diversified by 
the multitudes of pyramidal temples, the Teocali, or 
houses of God — canoes covering the mirrored lakes 
— the lofty trees, the flowers, and the profusion of 
water now wanting to the landscape — the whole fer- 
tile valley inclosed by its eternal hills and snow- 
covered volcanoes— what scenes of wonder and 
beauty to burst upon the eyes of these wayfaring 
men ! The beautiful gardens surrounding the city, 
the profusion of flowers, and fruit, and birds — the 
wild bronze-coloured Emperor himself advancing, in 
the midst of his Indian nobility, with rich dress and 
unshod feet, to receive his unbidden and unwelcome 
guest — the slaves and the gold, and the rich plumes 
— all to be kid at the feet of His Most Sacred Ma- 
jesty — what pictures are called up by the recollec- 
tion of the simple narrative of Cortes, and how 
forcibly they return to the mind now, when, after a 



LAKE TEZCUCG—CITY OF MEXICO. 49 

lapse of three centuries,* we behold for the first 
time the city of palaces raised upon the ruins of the 
Indian capital." 

In an hour from leavingthe pyramids we are close 
to the waters of Lake Tezcuco ; we run round its 
northern margin, pass the heights of Guadalupe, and 
soon enter the station. Night has fallen, and we 
are in the City of Mexico. Leaving our trunks to 
be looked after by Van W., we seek and find shelter 
and rest, in what was the palace of the first Emperor, 
now the Hotel Iturbide : we have large handsome 
rooms, with brick floors, but nicely carpeted, allotted 
to us ; there is a French restaurant downstairs, 
where we are to be fed, and the charges there, and 
for lodging and attendance, all put together, are to 
come to something short of two dollars and a half, 
or half a guinea a-day each — more than a dollar and 
a half a-day less than the like charges at New York 
and Southern States hotels. 

We send back to the station for our trunks, but 
not sending the keys, have to put up with the con- 
tents of our bags till the morning. Of course we 
are very much impressed with being where we are, 



* Madame Cakleron was there in 1839 ; her husband was the Spanish Minis- 
ter to Mexico. 



50 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

and with what I have quoted to you, and try to 
think of Cortes and the brave adventurers he led, 
and Montezuma, and all that sort of thing, but 
truth to tell, we are all of us much absorbed with 
one idea — as yet only an idea — and that is, dinner. 



f ttUt ®o. L 




Hotel Iturbide, City of Mexico, 
4th March. 

JE have been here now more than a week, and, 
though accustomed to the sights about us, 
are never tired of viewing and admiring 
the city and its surroundings. It is not, and you 
must not expect it to be, quite like Southey's pic- 
ture as he thus apostrophises it : — 

' ' Thou art beautiful ! 
Queen of the valley ! thou art beautiful ! 
Thy walls like silver sparkle in the sun : 
Melodious wave thy groves ; thy garden sweets 
Enrich the pleasant air : upon the lake 
Lie the long shadows of thy towers." 

for he was not addressing the Mexico of to-day, and 
besides, he was writing poetry, and the lake has 
gone away from the shadows, taking away with it 
all the beauty its closer proximity contributed ; but 
Mexico nevertheless is beautiful, a gem of a city, 
with a setting of plain, lakes, suburbs, mountains, 
that can only be called magnificent. 



52 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

The lakes are not what they were in the time of 
Cortes; Lake Chalco is very much smaller, and Lake 
Tezcuco has not only become much shallower, but 
its waters have receded two miles and more from 
the city. As a consequence there is no vestige of 
the old street canals; they are filled up, and a large 
fringe of marshy land has taken the place of bright 
water. The city, too, is much less in area, and in- 
finitely less in population than when its conqueror 
first came to it ; lines and marks are about and 
around it, plainly indicating the sides of streets 
and sites of buildings and inclosures of very long 
ago; and in the business streets many gaps and 
ruins occur, which we are told are mostly the con- 
fiscated properties formerly belonging to the Church. 

The present population of the city is something 
over two hundred thousand ; it is well built ; the 
houses large, substantial, and of stone, with fiat 
roofs, are generally built round a patio or yard, en- 
tered from the street by a large gateway ; the lower 
story, which is generally used for servants and offices, 
has its covered gallery all round, and lookingout upon 
this yard, so have the upper stories, looking down 
upon it, and the yard is always open to the sky ; 
the floors and staircases of all the buildings we yet 
have entered are of marble, stone, or large square 




2 

1 

a 

o 

3 
£ 

S3 



CITY OF MEXICO. 53 

brick. Some of the houses are faced with porcelain, 
giving them a very pretty effect, as if built in 
mosaics. There are many fine public buildings and 
churches, a magnificent cathedral, a fine large plaza, 
and two beautiful parks, one of them the Alameda. 

The suburbs of Chapultepec and Tacubaya are 
lovely and full of interest, and two of the mountains 
in the setting I have told you of, Popocatapetl and 
Iztaccihuatl, are two of the highest, grandest snow- 
capped volcanoes in the world. I cannot quite 
make out the form of a reclining woman in the out- 
line of the latter mountain, but the rest of the party 
can, or think they can. Will you try your imagina- 
tion with the photograph I send ? 

By the way, names which but a few days since 
were puzzles to us, are now as familiar to us as 
household words ; the two big mountains I have 
just spoken of, and which meet our eyes every day, 
and a hundred times a day, are (never mind their 
spelling) i( Po-po-cat-a-pettle""Iss-tassy-ivottle" Can 
anything be more simple and easy \ Know, too, 
that our hotel is called the Eater-beady. 

The people we meet in streets and public places 
are motley indeed ; all races and all colours seem 
to be here. The women of the upper classes, the 
grand ladies of Mexico, so far as we can see and 



54 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

hear, don't walk, but always drive, in public places. 
The men do, and they appear in the ordinary morning 
dress suit with the black silk hat worn by English 
gentlemen ; but nine-tenths of those we see are of 
the industrial classes, and their costumes are new 
to us, and always more and more taking and pic- 
turesque the more we see of them. I must not for- 
get .the street cries, or rather the many who cry 
them : there is the water-carrier, perhaps the 
strangest in get up and appearance of them all; 
he has two large globular red porous earthern jars 
suspended from his shoulders, so large, the wonder 
is how he can carry them; these he fills at the aque- 
duct and takes from house to house, slaking the 
thirst of those who stop him on his way. There is 
the woman with a brazier of hot charcoal and other 
apparatus all ready, who wants you to wait while 
she sits on the curb-stone and cooks you some fish 
— and there is the fish, sea fish from the gulf, 263 
miles off, all ready too, to be cooked — and I see 
she has a bit simmering in a griddle which has a 
very savoury flavour to the nostrils — wouldn't you 
like some ? And there is another woman with a like 
brazier and apparatus ready to cook you, now and 
here, mysterious dishes with many beans and much 
oil, and garlic and peppers among them. And 




as' -^ 



THE STREETS OF MEXICO. 

there are tortilla and sweet-cake and sweet-meal 
sellers, and the butcher and the general peddler, and 
the man selling charcoal strapped t<> his hack like 
►letter's knapsack, and a, score of others, all 
strangely picturesque, even if raggedly clothed, 
and all busily crying their wares in lusty street-cry 
Spanish. The main streets are generally crowded. 
and the mules, donkeys, horses, carriages, carts, 
vehicles of every description, with their drivers and 
riders, are continual sights to which our eyes open 
wide. The caballero, as lie prances by on his met- 
tled horse always stop- as, that we may see more 
of him and what he wears and carries about him. 
If his steed were a Rozinante, the rowels of his 
spurs might almost he made to meet in its middle. 

We like to go into the patio of our hotel when 
the diligences arrive from Toluca and elsewhere. 
Six mules, and such a jingling and rattling, as they 
come in ! The passengers seem mostly of the cabal- 
lero class, and are more given to travelling in this 
fashion than other people. 

The street on which the hotel fronts takes us 
straight to the great square, the plaza de armas, 
which is about fourteen acres in extent ; within it 
are a park and a lovelj garden, the latter planted 
by the Empress Carlotta. On this plaza front the 



56 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

cathedral, the national palace, the municipal build^ 
ings, and a long range of arcaded shops or stores, 
very solidly built, and of handsome appearance. 

The cathedral, like that of Syracuse, is built upon 
the site of an ancient pagan temple. Where it 
stands was the great teocali (house of God) of the 
Aztecs. No vestige of this huge pyramid appears, 
but there is built into the outer wall of the cathe- 
dral, low down at its south-east corner, a strange 
relic of this singular people, indicating their posses- 
sion of much scientific and astronomical knowledge, 
called the Calendar Stone, which was dug up from 
the teocali, or other adjacent ruins in this great 
square, in 1790. It is an immense block of black 
porphyritic rock, rough at its edges, with circles, 
points, and hieroglyphics deeply carved on it, and 
by it they had the means of knowing accurately the 
hours of the day, the times of the solstices and equi- 
noxes, and of the transit of the sun across the 
zenith of Mexico. The moving of this stone by the 
Aztecs, who possessed no horses or beasts of burden, 
is a puzzle to the present day : they brought it 
from the mountains beyond Lake Chalco, many 
leagues away, and made it part of the parapher- 
nalia and building of the teocali. Its weight before 
being worked is said to have been nearly fifty 



THE CAT HE DUAL IN MEXICO. 57 

tons ; the diameter of the outside circle of the dial 
is eleven feet eight inches. 

I cannot describe a cathedral ; but I can say that 
both outside and inside, especially inside, this one 
is very beautiful and imposing ; it is unlike any I 
have seen elsewhere. The railings between the 
choir and the high altar are very fine and costly ; 
they are made of an amalgam of gold, silver, and 
brass. There is a great deal of finely -carved wood- 
work representing scriptural scenes, some good 
paintings, and wherever smallcolumns or pilasters ap- 
pear about altar or screen, they are of the beautiful 
Puebla marble or onyx, more like agate than marble. 
There is a great deal of colour about the church ; 
the service is gorgeous, and the choir and organ 
both very good. The sacristy is a grand room ; the 
marble and other furnishings of the lavatory for the 
priests singularly handsome. 

Adjoining the cathedral, and connected with it, 
is the sagrario or parish church, Moorish in its ar- 
chitecture, laboriously carved outside, much gilded 
within; and in and about both a brisk trade of lottery 
tickets is kept up, their sale bringing in much profit 
to the church. Both cathedral and sagrario are built 
on a platform of four or five feet high, made as they 
are, of the dark porphyritic stone so common here. 



58 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

But let us go back to the teocali, this one being 
famous in Spanish history. It was of immense size, 
and upon it, and others like it of larger or smaller 
dimensions in ancient Anahuac, from twenty to fifty 
thousand human beings were sacrificed yearly. 

The victims were taken to the summit of these 
pyramids, and placed on the sacrificial stone, their 
breasts were opened with a heavy sharp knife or 
hatchet of aztli (obsidian), cutting through the ribs 
as well as flesh, and their hearts torn from them. 
The hearts quivering with life, were held tip to- 
wards the sun, which was worshipped throughout 
Anahuac, and placed at the feet of the God to 
whom the temple was devoted. 

This done, the bodies of the victims were thrown 
down the pyramid and seized by the multitude to 
be cooked and form the principal dish at the feasts 
following the sacrifices ; and it would seem they had 
their Francatellis and Soyers for the purpose. Pres- 
cott says of them : — " This was not the coarse re- 
past of famished cannibals, but a banquet teeming 
with delicious beverages and delicate viands, pre- 
pared with art, and attended by both sexes, who 
conducted themselves with all the decorum of civi- 
lized life." 

Not far from the cathedral, and fronting on the 



THE "MONTE P10." 59* 

great plaza, is an old palace built by Cortes : it is 
used by the Government for their " Monte Pio " or 
" Monte de Piedad," a huge pawn-broking estab- 
lishment. Here you can buy anything, from a 
brougham to a diamond ring ; from a piano to a 
dressing-case. Money is advanced upon anything 
and everything, and great bargains are to be picked 
up occasionally. We were politely shown about 
the building. As most likely to be interesting, 
some of the most costly sets of jewels were taken, 
from their strong places and shown to us. Their 
time for sale had not yet come ; some of the sets 
were very handsome, and had been pledged for 
many thousand dollars, shown by a ticket annexed 
to them ; they were all old fashioned. 

My party one day, without me, went to Guada- 
lupe, and during the journey one of them, L , 

had her pocket picked, the only theft we have suf- 
fered from as yet. She wore an open pocket, on 
what Jack would call the starboard quarter of her 
dress, a pocket borrowed in pattern from the watch 
pocket of the old four-post bedstead. Into this, 
when she entered the street car for Guadalupe, was 
stuffed a pocket-book loaded with seven silver dol- 
lars, a pair of gloves, and a handkerchief. Why 
will women wear pockets behind them ? They 



<60 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

must be as speaking to thieves as the swine to 
the gipsy in George Barrow's Zincali, — 

" There runs a swine down yonder hill, 
As fast as e'er he can ; 
And as he runs he crieth still, 
' Come steal me, gipsy man.' " 

When L left that street car her pocket was 

43mpty ; surely this is a proof that Mexico possesses 
a high degree of civilization. 

Tempted by what I had beard of Guadalupe, I 

went there with T a few days after this : it is 

four or five miles off, and is rather a dirty suburb. 
Street cars are everywhere, and they run to it every 
half-hour from the plaza ; they are first and second 
class, and drawn by mules on an iron tramway, having 
much sharper curves than those we see at home. The 
first-class carriages are clean, comfortable and fast. 

Close to the foot of the Guadalupe range, which 
extends from the city some miles along the valley, 
is the cathedral, a huge mass of buildings covered 
with domes and turrets : to its right, as we are 
facing its front, is a little chapel in which is a chaly- 
beate spring, and two or three hundred yards up 
the mountain is another and larger chapel : all are 
dedicated to and built in honour of " our Lady of 
Guadalupe." 



OUR LADY OF GUADALUPE. 61 

The legend * about her is pretty, and what it tells 
us came to pass when the conversion of the Aztecs 
was proceeding but slowly, and when upon this very 
spot stood an Aztec temple. 

It was between the 9th and 12th of December 
(the day of the month cannot be fixed nearer), in 
the year 1531, that Juan Diego, a converted Indian, 
was going up this mountain : passing the spot where 
the chalybeate spring now is, he heard the sound 
of sweet music and beheld a rainbow, from which 

* Under the title of Santa Maria del Pillar, our Lady of the Pillar, the 
blessed Virgin, is styled " Protectress of Saragossa," and is said to have de- 
scended from Heaven there, standing on an alabaster pillar, and to have thus 
appeared to St. James (Santiago) when he was preaching the Gospel in Spain. 
A.D. 40. The miraculous pillar is preserved in one of the cathedrals at Sara- 
This miracle was so strongly attested, that a Primate of Spain, so late 
as A.D. 1720, excommunicated those who even questioned it. 

Perhaps nearest in resemblance to the legend of Guadalupe is that of the 
blessed Virgin, under the title of Santa Maria della Neve, our Lady of the 
Snow, to which the magnificent Church of S. M. Maggiore, in Rome, is said to 
owe its origin. I give it from Mrs. Jamieson's introduction, p. 66 : 

"A certain Roman patrician, whose name was John (Giovanni Pati'icio), 
being childless, prayed of the Virgin to direct him how best to bestow his 
worldly wealth. She appeared to him in a dream on the night of the fifth of 
August, 352, and commanded him to build a church in her honour, on a spot 
where snow would be found the next morning. The same vision having ap- 
peared to his wife, and the reigning Pope, Liberius, they repaired in procession 
the next morning to the summit of Mount Esquiline, where, notwithstanding 
the heat of the weather, a large patch of ground was miraculously covered with 
snow, and on it Liberius traced out with his crozier the plan of the church. 
This story has been often represented in art, and is easily recognised ; but it is 
curious that the two most beautiful pictures consecrated to the honour of the 
Madonna del Xeve are Spanish, and not Roman, and were painted by Murillo 
about the time that Philip IV. of Spain sent rich offerings to the church of S. 
M. Maggiore, thus giving a kind of popularity to the legend. They are called 
in Spanish, S. Maria la Blanca." 



62 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

suddenly appeared to him a beautiful lady, who told 
him she was the Blessed Virgin, and that he must 
go to the bishop and inform him of what he had 
heard and seen. 

This the Indian did, but he made no impression 
on the mind of the bishop. Again the Virgin ap- 
peared to the Indian in the same spot, making the 
same intimation to him, and telling him to inform 
the bishop of it, which he does, but the bishop is 
still incredulous. Three times more the Virgin ap- 
peared to Juan Diego, always in the same spot, and 
at their last meeting she cures his uncle of a serious 
malady by the waters of the chalybeate spring, 
which suddenly bursts up from under her feet. She 
then tells the Indian to go up the mountain nearly 
to its summit and gather some roses, and that he 
must take them to the bishop as a proof that the 
message she now sends by him comes from her ; 
and the message is, that she desires the bishop to 
" build a church on this mountain, and worship her 
there as the Virgin of Guadalupe." 

Nothing but pines and scrub grew on the moun- 
tain, as Juan Diego knew well, for he traversed it 
daily ; but he did as he was told, and found roses 
blooming in the very spot, where now stands the 
upper chapel. He hastily plucks and pute them in 



THE GUARDIAN SAINT OF MEXICO. 63 

his tilma or blanket, takes them to the bishop, and 
delivers with them the blessed Virgin's last mes- 
sage. As the bishop takes the flowers from the 
folds of the blanket, there appears painted on it a 
beautiful Madonna, the very likeness of the Virgin 
of Guadalupe. Bishop Zumarraga is astonished, 
his unbelief is gone, and faith and adoration take 
its place. Diego is thanked, his uncle called in, 
and they, with the bishop and his attendants, pros- 
trate themselves before the beautiful image of the 
Saint. The flowers and the blanket with the mirac- 
ulous painting on it were transferred by the bishop 
to the church, in whose custody they yet are, and 
our Lady of Guadalupe became at once, and has 
remained ever since, the guardian Saint of Mexico. 
She was a native, their own Saint, and was soon far 
more in their hearts than " Our Lady of the Reme- 
dies," who came from Spain, ever could be;t and 

+ I know of no history from which sprung the name Our Lady de los Eeme- 
dios, nor can I find any in the only authority I possess on the subject — Mrs. 
Tamieson's charming book, " Legends of the Madonna." I take it, like that 
of Santa Maria della Salute, almost its equivalent, which I do find there, to 
be only " one of the various titles given.to the Virgin Mary, and thence to cer- 
tain effigies and pictures of her, expressive of the wants, the aspirations, the 
infirmities and sorrows, which are common to poor suffering humanity, or of 
those divine attributes from which they hoped to find aid and consolation." 

The little image of the Virgen de los Remedios brought over by Cortes was an 
object of great reverence with his followers. It was concealed, it is said, on the 
day following the noche triste of his retreat from Mexico ; at all events, for some 
time it disappeared, and was at last found in a maguey plant on the top of a 



64: A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

she made and kept converts by tens of thousands 
through the length and breadth of the land. And 
so it came to pass that all these massive and costly 
churches and buildings were erected ; they are all 
in honour of Maria Santissima de Guadalupe. 



barren mountain by an Indian. The Spaniards, full of joy and thanksgiving, 
built a church on the spot, and placed a priest in charge of the "miraculous 
image." Madame Calderon, writing of it, says : — " Her fame spread abroad, 
and gifts of immense value were brought to her shrine. A treasurer was ap- 
pointed to take charge of her jewels, a camarista to superintend her rich ward- 
robe. No rich dowager died in peace until she had bequeathed to our Lady of 
los Remedios her largest diamond or richest pearl. In seasons of drought she 
is brought in from her dwelling in the mountain and carried in procession 
through the streets. The Viceroy himself, on foot, used to lead the holy train. 
One of the highest rank drives the chariot in which she is seated. In succes- 
sion she visits the principal convents, and as she is carried through the clois- 
tered precincts, the nuns are ranged on their knees in humble adoration. Plen- 
tiful rains immediately follow her arrival. , who accompanied us, has 

on several occasions filled the office of her coachman, by which means he has 
seen the interior of most of the convents in Mexico. It is true that there came 
a time when the famous Curate Hidalgo, the prime mover of the revolution, 
having taken as his standard, the Virgin of Guadalupe, a rivalry arose between 
her and the Spanish Virgin ; and Hidalgo having been defeated and forced to 
fly, the image of the Virgen de los Remedios was conducted to Mexico dressed 
as a General, and invoked as the Patroness of Spain. Later still, the Virgin 
herself was denounced a sa Gachupina " (a name given to Europeans in New 

Spain), " her General's sash boldly torn from her by the valiant General , 

who also signed her passport, with an order for her to leave the Republic. How- 
ever, she was again restored to her honours, and still retains her treasures, her 
camarista, and sanctum sanctorum." 

Madame Calderon went to see the celebrated image, and thus proceeds : — 
" The mountain is barren and lonely, but the view from its summit is beauti- 
ful, commanding the whole plain. The church is old and not very remarkable, 
yet a picturesque object, as it stands in its grey solitariness, with one or two 
trees beside it, of which one, without leaves, was entirely covered with the 
most brilliant scarlet flowers. 

" Senor having been the Virgin's coachman, the Senora being the 

daughter of her camarista, and C n the minister from the land of her pre- 



THE CATHEDRAL OF GUADALUPE. 66 

The upper church, built on the spot where 1 >i 

gathered the roses, is reached from the base of the 

intain by a handsome stone staircase. Numer- 

offerings and mementos of the Saint a goodness, 

uring and saving powers have been placed about 

grateful \\ orshippers. 
On tlic right as you ascend is the mast of a ship 
with sails set, sculptured in stone, looking \n\ oddly 

Dished at the distinguished reception which \ 
with from the reverend padre, the guardian of the mountain. 

" The church within i.> handsome, and al»>\ <• the altar is a copy of th< 

nal Virgin. After we had remained there a little while we were admitted into 

the sanctum, where the identical Virgin i t" I ortes, v ith a large silver maguey, 

occupies Ikt splendid Bhrine. The priest retired and put on his robes, and then 

returning, and all kne'eling before the altar, he recited the credo. This over, 

he mounted the steps, and, opening the Bhrine where the Virgin was encased, 

knelt down and removed her in his arms. He then presented her to each of 

- in succession, every one kissing the hem of her satin robe. 

i( The image is a wooden doll, about a foot high, holding in it> arms an in 

sub, both faces evidently carved with a rude pen-knife: two holes for 

the eye> and another for the mouth. This doll was dressed in blue satin and 

. u ith a crown up. >ji her head, and a quantity <>f hair fastened on to the 

rown : no Indian idol could be much uglier. As she has been a good deal scratched 

itroyed in the- Laps* ! — n observed, that he was astonished 

they had not tried to restore her a tittle. To this the padre replied, that 

the attempt had been made by several artists, each one vf whom had sickened 

and died. He also mentioned as one of her miracles that, living on a solitary 

mountain, she had never been robbed ; but r fear the good padre is Bomewhal 

this sacrilege has happened more than once. On one occasion a 

crowd of Uperot being collected, and the image carried round to be kissed, one 

of them, affecting intense devotion, bit off the large pearl that adorned her drees 

in front, and before the theft was discovered he had mingled with the crowd 

and escaped. When reminded of the circumstance, the padre said it was tru< , 

but that the thief was a Fn nchn 

Can any parallel to this story of setting off Imperial against Colonial Saint, 
the one to check, the other to aid rebellion, be found in the history of the war 
between England and hex North American col 
i 



66 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

out of place. This was erected by a gentleman who 
was shipwrecked at Vera Cruz, and whose life was 
saved, as he devoutly believed, by the interference 
of the Virgin of Guadalupe. We entered the cathe- 
dral, passing through a crowd of beggars at its door. 
It is very fine in many respects, and is gorgeous 
with gilt and silver and ornament. There is some 
beautiful wood carving, and a double railing from 
choir to altar is of solid silver. I am afraid to say 
how long or high, or thick or valuable it is, lest you 
might think I exaggerated. Organ and choir are 
magnificent ; music, and the grandest of all, sacred 
music, is at home in Mexico. 

What most obtained our attention though, was 
the great earnestness and devotion of the hundreds 
who were joining in the service ; all alike seemed 
engrossed in most humble earnest prayer. 

I wonder if it was wicked in me to think that 
they were not praying to the Almighty — the King 
of Kings and Lord of Lords — but to " our Lady of 
Guadalupe. " 

There is a School of Art in Mexico which 
possesses some fine paintings, among them some 
genuine Murillos ; there is also a School of mines 
and a museum. In the latter we could find no- 
thing open to the public save two or three rooms 



THE MUSEUM, CITY OF MEXICO. 67 

devoted to natural history ; but looking about the 
offices of the building, I met a gentleman who kind- 
ly unlocked the rooms, in which, besides the library, 
were the antiquities we were so desirous to see. In 
the library were Lord Kingsborough's book and 
Humboldt's "Flora of Mexico." Among the anti- 
quities, quaint old Aztec things, idols, jars, vases, 
rude musical instruments, two or three heavy sacri- 
ficial yokes of stone, mirrors of obsidian, in which 
Aztec ladies performed their toilette ; also, among 
a thousand other strange things, were the victorious 
banner of Cortes, with a lovely Madonna face 
pictured on it, and the feather shield of Montezuma. 
Everything was higgledy piggledy about the rooms ; 
no order or arrangement. In the court below was 
an immense sacrificial stone strangely sculptured, a 
hollow in its top for the head, and channels for the 
blood of the victim; and there, too, was a huge 
hideous stone idol of their god of war, at whose feet 
the victim's heart was offered. Both came from the 
teocali, which stood where the cathedral now is. 

The face of this idol is heavy and stolid : it is, I 
should say, not the war-god of the Aztecs seen by 
Cortes in its temple, on the top of this teocali, by 
permission of Montezuma ; the idol he saw was hor- 
rible to look at, and had a great deal of gold and 



68 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

many precious stones and pearls inlaid in and about 
it. Prescott describes it closely, and adds : 

" The most conspicuous ornament was a chain of 
gold and silver hearts alternate, suspended round 
his neck, emblematical of the sacrifice in which he 
most delighted. A more unequivocal evidence of 
this was afforded by three human hearts smoking, 
and almost palpitating, as if recently torn from the 
victims, and now lying on the altar before him." 

Of the temple or chapel it was in, and of another, 
he says : 

" The walls were stained with human gore. { The 
stench was more intolerable,' exclaims Diaz, ' than 
that of the slaughter-houses in Castile ! ' 5 

I cannot leave these two horrid stones without 
mention of the pyramid of skulls of the victims 
found in this teocali, counted by one of the soldiers 
at one hundred and thirty-six thousand ! "Belief," 
says Prescott, " might well be staggered, did not 
the old world present a worthy counterpart in the 
pyramid of Golgothas, which commemorated the 
triumphs of Tamerlane." 

The old market is always interesting to visit, for 
you see there still much that was so well described 
by the Spaniards more than three hundred years 
ago, with the very same costumes and people : it is 



THE PASEO. 69 

close to the plaza and the palace, and at the end of 
the canal which brings it vegetables, frnit — a hun- 
dred things. The fruits are delicious. We have 
eaten and enjoyed the mango, and have many dif- 
ferent rich fruits in abundance daily ; one is just 
like Charlotte Russe, another like butter ! 

Some of the streets are exceptionally line ; that 
of San Francisco, on which our hotel fronts, is one 
of the best. It runs easterly by many names to the 
plaza, and westerly by many other names past the 
beautiful alameda or park, wherein, by the way, 
you are not safe from robbery after dusk. The rail- 
way history book says : " The Alameda had an open- 
ing near the Convent of San Diego, called the 
1 Quemadero,' from the stone brazier for burning 
victims of the Inquisition. The Viceroy, Marquis 
de Croix, in 1760. ordered it to be destroyed, and 
gave the alameda the space it now possesses." Be- 
yond this the street goes into the paseo, the great 
drive, rotten-row and promenade of all Mexico. 
There you will see the caballero on his beautiful 
horse, in all his pride and grandeur ; such a hat ! 
made of line light-coloured felt, wide as an umbrella, 
laced with gold or silver cord, and costing as much, 
perhaps, as thirty English hats : his dress too elabo- 
rate for my description, and his spurs looking as if 



70 A TRIP TO MEXICO, 

made for slaughter, not for speeding. There are 
carriages and vehicles hanclsomeand humble, horse- 
men and mule-men of every sort and description : 
among the former, English broughams and other 
carriages of faultless make, colour, and finish, the 
horses and harness perfect. You see ladies beau- 
tifully dressed, and you see the dress and get up, 
by thousands, of everybody in the country, high and 
low, and of very many who come from other lands. 
The paseo in the afternoon is a sight to see again 
and again. For a certain length, about three miles, 
it is guarded by cavalry on either side, doing duty 
as mounted police ; beyond, some two miles or so, 
is Chapultepec, which was the home of Montezuma 
and his race ; and beyond that again, some two 
miles, is Tacubaya, a large village with beautiful 
parks, villas and gardens, where the rich of Mexico 
love to dwell and to visit. 

We have been to Chapultepec again and again : 
it is surrounded by a high fence : entering by a, 
large gate close to the high road, we are at once in 
its grounds, and among huge venerable trees, one 
of which, a Cyprus, fifty feet in circumference, is 
called "Montezuma's tree," from his being much 
accustomed to sit under it. Not far from this 
tree rises abruptly the high hill or mass of rock 



CHAPULTEPEC. 71 

on which is the picturesque building called the 
castle of Chapultepec, built by the Viceroy Galvez 
in the seventeenth century. We found its topmost 
tower being fitted up for the convenience of some 
astronomers who were shortly to be in Mexico to 
watch the transit of Venus. The rooms are, some 
of them, tine, but everywhere there is a look 
of desertion — of the empty house. It is used 
but now and then, and only for State occasions, and 
though Maximilian delighted in it, there is little or 
nothing within its walls that we are permitted to 
to remind us that he was ever here. 
I cannot properly describe the view from the 
castle. It is beyond me. Immediately below it, 
are its own beautiful grounds ; beyond, the villas. 
churches, groves, parks, and gardens of Tacubaya. 
Again, beyond them, Popocatapetl and Iztaccihuatl. 
To the left, and in front, are the distant city and 
valley, with vistas of the lakes, intensely brilliant in 
blue : more to the left are the sierra of Guadalupe; 
and everywhere, behind and around, and framing 
the panorama, are mountains, rich in colour and 
bold and beautiful in outline. Is there any such 
spot for royal residence in the world ? Descending, 
we go out at the gate by which we entered, notic- 
ing now, If we have not before, the pool and rills 



72 A -TRIP TO MEXICO. 

known as Montezuma's bath, near to which, taking 
the waters of Chapultepec to the city, begins the 
famous San Cosme aqueduct, a picturesque old 
stone structure, supported by arches. 

One of the roads leading to the city, passing that 
huge amphitheatre, the plaza de toros, the now un- 
used bull-fight building, and entering the paseo at 
its upper end, is known as the " Empress's Drive." 
It was made by Maximilian at her desire. 

Again we came out in this direction, going to 
Tianetantla, some fourteen miles or more from Cha- 
pultepec, so that we have seen the country all round 
it. To get to Tianetantla we took the street cars from 
the plaza for some four or five miles, and then a 
locomotive displaced the mules and took us on ; but 
there is nothing to see at Tianetantla, except that 
you get nearer the base of the mountains surround- 
ing the valley. 

You will gather some idea of what Chapultepec 
and the views from it are by the photographs ; for 
what it was in the time of Montezuma I must re- 
fer you to your books. 

There is a foundry and manufactory for brass 
cannon and other arms' at Molino del Rey, close by 
Chapultepec, and at Tacubaya is the military col- 
lege, neither of which we have visited yet. 



A 1 1UFIED A TMOSPHERE. 7 

We have all of us been a little distressed by the 
rarified atmosphere, as most strangers are — I, more 
so than the others. During the first few nights of 
our coming I used to wake up gasping, and rush to 
and open the window to breathe the better, return- 
ing to bed chilled and cold with the night air. Get- 
ting up-stairs, too, was trying, and is yet to us all. 

Not knowing what this meant, I consulted Dr. 

S , the United States Consul-General, who 

kindly came to see me. His diagnosis was very 
prompt. " Do you know," he asked, " that you are 
thirty-seven times higher up in the air than the top 
of the steeple of Trinity Church in Broadway, New 
York 1 ?" I found that changing my room from a 
northern to a southern aspect completely removed 
this trouble. 

For some days before reaching Vera Cruz, acting 
from what I had read, and on the advice of our 
medical attendant, I had given my party daily doses 
of quinine, as a preventive against fever, which Dr. 

S says is quite right ; but he adds, " continue 

it here, for there is a great deal of malaria from bad 
drainage and the subsidence of the lakes." Puebla 
he speaks Aery approvingly of. 

The days are very hot in the sun, which is verti- 
cal, but there is always a cool, sometimes a cold, 



74 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

breeze and air coming from the mountain tops and 
sides. Half an hour or so before the sun sets comes 
a chilliness that tells us his warmth is passing away, 
and how much more pleasant this great altitude is 
with it than without it. 

A fire in the evening would be very nice to have, 
for we are, so to speak, in a well — a deep cellar, 
walled up with high mountains; but no fire can be 
had : there is no fire-place. 

England has no representative in Mexico, and the 

United States minister is absent ; but Mrs. F 

shows us much hospitality and kindness, enables us 
to see something of the English-speaking society, 

and is especially good to T , who, but for this, 

would know much less of Mexican manners, cus- 
toms, and shops. 

My letter is more than long enough. Addio I. 



fetter Qo, o. 




Hotel Ituijijide, City of Mexico, 
7th March. 
N" Tuesday last we had an expedition on the 
canal, a party from the American Consulate 
accompanying us. Driving up the paseo de 
la Viga, and passing a square wherein stood a bust 
of Guatemozin (there is none of Montezuma any- 
where), we reached a bridge crossing the canal 
which runs into, or rather out of Lake Chalco, and 
getting into a large flat bottomed boat, with com- 
fortable seats and an awning, were quietly poled 
along by a couple of Indians for some miles, to a 
village called Ixtacalco, where was a very old church 
built by Cortes. 

There had been within the city carnival making 
»me extent, yet but little, owing to the recent 
death of PioNono, for whose memory the inhabitants 
have a great and sincere respect, and many windows 
were draped in mourning in consequence. But at 
Ixtacalco was a small party of mummers who rather 



76 A TEIP TO MEXICO. 

persecuted us with absurd music and gesture, fol- 
lowing us some little distance, perhaps only the way 
they were going, along the bank of the canal. We 
went all about and on top of the old church, which 
was dirty and dilapidated, and looked as if not 
much prayed in or cared for. This appears to be 
the condition of numbers of churches all over the 
country; its cause, either a decrease in religious 
feeling, or the stripping of the church by the govern- 
ment, of so much of its property and revenues ; how- 
ever this may be, it is apparent that the masses of 
the Mexican people, with or without those above 
them, and however tolerant their government may 
be, are disinclined to permit any church other than 
their own to live and flourish among them. 

We went into the little churchyard. About the 
graves were heaps of bleached skulls and bones- — a 
common, but very unpleasing spectacle in Mexican 
churchyards. In coming and returning we passed 
many large boats laden with country produce, going 
to the market, and, I must not forget to say, many 
island, but not floating, gardens : the days of the 
latter are past, the former flourish and are made 
thus : — A piece of ground being selected along the 
back of the canal, a ditch is dug at its rear and 
parallel with the canal, other ditches are dug from 



LAKE TKZCUGO. 77 

the canal to this, at right angles to it across the 
piece of ground, which is thus made into many is- 
lands, easily irrigated from the ditches surrounding 
them, and accessible by them from the canal. 

We get glimpses both of Lake Chalco and Lake 
Tezcuco during the day. The latter is ten miles 
long, six wide — looking at it, I should have thought 
it much more. A day or two since we heard there was 
a steamer running on it, and we at once had the desire 
to go all over the lake in that steamer, and see all 
its coast and explore its beautiful mountain setting. 
We thought of newspapers, handbills, placards, to 
find that steamer ; but they don't do that sort of 
thing in Mexico; you must find out all things as you 
best can ; the manager of the hotel couldn't tell us, 
but he said we had better get a carriage and drive 
to two or three places he named, and we might 
learn all we wanted. 

We did as we were told, and after much driving 
and questioning, to our great disappointment, we 
at last got this information : — 1. The lake was at 
this season too shallow for the steamer. 2. The 
steamer had burst her boiler ! 

We have visited the palace, a fine building ex- 
tending along the east side of the plaza, and have 
had the honour of an interview with President Diaz. 



78 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

A party from the United States Consulate ac- 
companied us, and so our admission was a matter 
of no difficulty. The courts and lobbies about the 
ground floor are filled with soldiers. Soon an old 
Colonel, on the staff of the President takes charge 

of us and shows us what is to be seen. Mr. C , 

a talented member of the New York Press, is with 
the Consulate party, and he interprets. 

The hall of the ambassadors is the chief, and a 
magnificent room. Its length is about a hundred 
and eighty feet, its width hardly sufficient for its 
length. Portraits of the leading Generals and 
Presidents hang on its walls, with some other paint- 
ings, among them one of the nocke triste, depicting 
the terrible attack upon Cortes and his band on the 
causeways during the night of their retreat. 

The picture is by a native artist, is large and very 
elaborate, requiring much time to master its details ; 
but it seemed to me to want light, without which 
no picture, especially those containing many figures, 
can be a success : you looked through an atmos- 
phere of darkness at large masses of figures fight- 
ing, struggling, and upon no figure or group was the 
flame of torch or other light brought to bear by the 
artist as it seemed to me it should have been. 

Asked if we should like to see the President, we 




General Porfirio Diaz, 

$ resident of the licpublic of $Ltxito. 



PRESIDENT DIAZ. 79 

said, certainly we should, but we could not think of 
intruding upon his time. 

We were told however, that the President would 
see us, and we were taken from the hall of Ambas- 
sadors to a smaller room and seated. Soon an aid-de- 
camp passes us with a paper, as if on business, but 
evidently to see what manner of people we were. The 
President*'' shortly enters — he is of middle height, 
slight rather than stout, graceful, genial in manner, 
a pure Indian, and is dressed in ordinary morning 

costume ; we rise and are presented by Mr. C , 

who tells the President in Spanish shortly, who each 
of us is : we are all made to sit again, and the Pre- 
sident has sonic words of conversation for us all, the 
right word always in the right place : there was 
that well-bred ease and repose about his manner 
which is so rarely met with — how did he acquire it 
or is it simply Aztec high breeding ! The son of an 



* Prince Sahn-Salm in his " last days of the Emperor Maximilian." London. 
Richard Bentley, 1868, thus sketches the history of General Porfirio Diaz:— 
" He commanded one of the large military divisions in which the country was 
divided, and that particularly which contained his home. Be had distinguished 
himself in the battle of Santa Lorette, where he had a higher command. When 
Puebla was taken later, he fell into the hands of the French, but succeeded in 
i scaping <>n his way to Vera Cruz, Later he organized a corps, but which was 
dispersed by the Austrians, who again made him a prisoner, and brought him 
to Puebla where he remained several months, until he found another opportunity 
of escaping. On his way he collected seven men with whom he went to his 
home, where this modest commencement of an army increased in the course of 
the year to twelve thousand men, with whom he besieged and took Mexico." 



80 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

English peer was with us, and to him were addressed 
a few graceful words having allusion to his father. 
To my reminder that Halifax was as near to Mexico 
as New York on the Atlantic, and that Vancouver 
was not much further than San Francisco on the 
Pacific, and that Canada desired to have a large 
interchange of products with Mexico, the President 
said, " he knew the position and advantages of the 
ports I had mentioned ; the policy of his govern; 
ment was to foster commerce with all countries, and 
already a trade had commenced with Canada." 

Rising, he gave his arm to T , and we all fol- 
lowed. He showed us what had been the bed-room 
and boudoir of the Empress Carlotta ; her dressing- 
room beyond them, he said was occupied. Show- 
ing us a beautiful cabinet made of many woods of 
the country covered in part with its marble, he said 
it was intended to go to the Centennial Exhibition, 
but was not completed in time. We saw a few vases 
and other things bearing the cipher of Maximilian. 

Taking leave of us at a side door leading down 
to the gardens of the palace, he placed us again in 
charge of our former escort the colonel, who took 
ns over them and then to the armoury. 

In the gardens the only thing worthy of note we 
saw was the hand tree, " el arbol de las manitas" 



ARMS THAT KILLED TPVO EMPERORS. 81 

probably the same tree Madame Calderon speaks 
of ; it was covered with bright scarlet flowers in the 
form of a hand, with five fingers and a thumb. 

The gardener gave us a number of them, and we 
tried to preserve some but without success. This 
tree is very rare, there being only one or two others 
in the country. 

We next visit the armoury. As we enter we see 
suspended high on the bare wall opposite to us, and 
far apart, two small stands of arms. They are those 
with which the two Emperors were shot to death. 

Wondering whose savage taste directed this exhi- 
bition, I said to the colonel : " I suppose these are 
here as a sort of proclamation that you want no 
more Emperors % " He laughed loudly, and nodded 
in reply. 

In the night I thought of these stands of arms, 
and how one of them had taken the life of the Em- 
peror Maximilian, the reason of the Empress, and 
how infinitely sadder and more awful is her fate 
than was his.*" 



* Prince Salm Salm, who was the Emperor's " first aide-de-camp and Chief 
of the Household " says, in his book already referred to, that the general be- 
lief was, that if the Emperor had fallen into the hands of Porfirio Diaz instead 
of those of Escobedo, he would not have been shot. But who can say ? From 
the stand point of the Juarez Government what were they to do otherwise ? 
The Emperor had shot their generals, taken in arms against his government ; 
should they not shoot him, taken in arms against theirs ? Their first Emperor 
F 



82 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

The foot of Popocatepetl is within twelve or 
fifteen miles of us, and you may expect me to tell 
you I have stood on its topmost peak, but I must 
disappoint you. When a mountain is accessible by 
rail, as are Bigi and Mount Washington, or even 
without rail if it be no higher than Helvellyn or 
Vesuvius, I approve of getting to the top of it ; 
but where you have to toil, labour and struggle, 
to perspire and freeze, to cut notches for your feet 
in getting up a sloping wall of ice, to be tied to a 

had pledged himself never to leave Europe or trouble them again ; but he had 
broken his word ; and what assurance had they that their second would not 
break his ? If he were dead, the government would be assured ; if he lived, 
there would be a mine under it ready to explode, at any moment. Add to this, 
the feeling of rancour and hot blood — and that Mexican blood — against the Im- 
perialists, and the result was inevitable. 

The following letter extracted from Prince Salm-Salm's book, speaks volumes 
as to the character of the unfortunate Emperor. He was to be shot on the 19th 
of June ; all hope of escape had been abandoned ; on the 18th he writes the 
letter, dating it the following day, to be delivered then : — 

' ' Quereteaeo, June 19th, 1867. 

" M. Benito Juarez.— On the point of suffering death, because I desired to 
try whether new institutions would enable me to put an end to the bloody war 
which for so many years has been causing ruin to this unhappy country, I will 
yield up my life with satisfaction, if this sacrifice can contribute to the welfare 
of my adopted country. 

" Being fully convinced that nothing durable can be produced on a soil soaked 
in blood, and moved by violent agitation, I implore you, in the most solemn 
manner, and with that sincerity which is peculiar to moments like those in which 
I find myself, that my blood may be the last that may be spilled, and that the 
same perseverance which I appreciated when in the midst of prosperity, and 
with which you defended the cause that conquers now, might be applied to the 
most noble end to reconcile all the hearts, and to rebuild on a durable, firm 
foundation, the peace and order of this unhappy country. 

" (Signed) Maximilian." 



POPOCATAPETL. 83 

rope with other foolish people tied to it above, 
others below you, a precipice behind and on either 
side of you, to be pulled up and down slopes and 
precipices by the rope when there is no foot-hold — 
in a word to be in a state of dirt, heat, cold, hunger, 
thirst, fatigue, risk, from base to summit, and from 
summit to base, I can only say, with the certainty 
of being despised by the members of the Alpine 
Club, and all people like them — le jeu rCen vaat pas 
la chandelle, and I will stay humbly below. What 
a state one's lungs and brain would be in at the 
top of this mountain, which is 1,945 feet higher 
than Mont Blanc ! But people do ascend it.* We 
met a lady at the United States Consulate, Miss 

B ,who had been up. She was young and strong, 

but seemed to speak of it with a sort of shiver. One 
gentleman of her party, which was, fortunately for 
him, numerous and well-appointed became fright- 



* The first ascent and descent into the crater was made under the orders of 
Corte's, by Francisco Montano, one of his officers, with a party of four. " They 
climbed to tbe very edge of the crater, which presented an irregular ellipse at 
its mouth, more than a league'in circumference. Its depth might be from 800 to 
1,000 feet. A lurid flame burned gloomily at the bottom, sending up a sulphu- 
reous steam, which, evolving as it rose, /was precipitated on the ridge of the 
cavity. The party cast lots, and it fell on Montano himself to descend in a 
basket into this hideous abyss, into which he was lowered by his companions to 
the depth of 700 feet ! This was repeated several times, till the adventurous 
cavalier had collected a sufficient quantity of sulphur for tbe wants of the 
army. "— Prescott. 



84 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

fully ill, and, in a state of insensibility was carried 
and lowered, and lowered and carried, and in that 
state brought down ; he did not recover for some 
weeks. 

The ascent is made from Ameca-Meca : in twelve 
hours you get to a ranch where you sleep ; at 
something short of 13,000 feet above the sea all 
vegetation ceases, and nearly to this, the mountain 
is covered thickly with forest ; above, it is strewed 
with pumice, sand and ashes from the crater, and 
covered with snow and ice. The sand affords a 
very dangerous footing, large fields of it often 
sliding downwards. The crater is more than three 
miles in diameter and more than a thousand feet 
deep ; it has been descended to the depth of 700 
feet. There is a hut above the ranch, and the 
ascent from this is more laborious troublesome and 
dangerous than the rest. The cold is extreme. 
There has been no active eruption since 1540, but 
the mountain still smokes, and Humboldt saw 
ashes being emitted from it when he ascended it. 

I could find no one who had ascended or heard 
of any one who had ascended Iztaccihuatl ; being 
some 2,000 feet lower than her husband and neigh- 
bour, she does not receive the attention he does. 

The sierra of Ahualco, a curtain like ridge 



RELIGIOUS TOLERATION. 85 

stretching north and south, connects the two vol- 
canoes ; at the pass of Ahualco where Cortes de- 
scended to the table-land and into the valley of 
Mexico, the height is but about 10,000 feet above 
the sea. 

I have spoken of the confiscation of the property 
of the Church : with it came freedom of opinion in 
religion and religious belief and that sweeping change 
which removed all the direct and acknowledged 
influence and control of Church over State intro- 
duced by the Spaniards, which was almost supreme, 
and which so long survived the independence of the 
country. Comonfort and Juarez were the final 
movers in this revolution, and what the former left 
undone the latter accomplished ; doubtless the fall 
of Maximilian was the beginning of the end, if the 
end has yet come. 

Not only has church property been confiscated, 
including that in convents and monasteries, but 
those institutions have been abolished and are for 
bidden, and a sponge has been passed through 
manifold debts secured to the Church all the country 
over by mortgage. Schools were established free 
of church control ; religious processions were pro- 
hibited ; churches and convent buildings were soon 
for sale everywhere, and the latter are now often 



86 A TBIP TO MEXICO. 

occupied as hotels, or in some other way foreign to 
their original purpose. 

But a few years since and the burial service of 
the Protestant Church could not be read over their 
dead ; and woe to that man who, while the Host 
was being carried past, did not throw himself on 
his knees before it ! 

The change has been great indeed, and extraordi- 
nary in this, that the bulk of the population, it 
might be said nearly all who possessed any re- 
ligion, were and are still Roman Catholics. 

And so it is not surprising although all this has 
come to pass, and although the priest is never seen 
in the streets or public places in cassock or robe, that 
the Church has still great influence in the country. 

The first blow practically struck at church pro- 
perty fell within a hundred yards of this hotel. The 
street on which it fronts runs now from the plaza 
past the alameda without interruption, and is one 
of the principal thoroughfares of Mexico ; but, in 
the time of Comonfort and before, it did not ; the 
grand church and convent of San Francisco, or 
rather the masses of building connected with them, 
blocked the way. Comonfort determined the street 
should be continued, used the power of his govern- 
ment for the purpose and put down with a strong 



PROTESTANT MISSIONARIES. 87 

hand the opposition offered by the Church. This 
portion of the street is now called the street of the 
Independence. Concurrently with this came the 
end of that cruel and persecuting intolerance of all 
other churches and forms of religion but their own ; 
and now, and for some years past men, individually 
and collectively, may openly, lawfully worship their 
Maker according to their own consciences. 

The law and the government permit this; but the 
people in many parts of the country are disinclined 
to do so, and have again and again shown how much 
the old feeling prevails among them by riot and 
violence. 

This new toleration brought to the country many 
Protestant missionaries from the United States, 
foremost among them the Reverend Dr. Riley of 
the Episcopal Church, whom I have the good for- 
tune to know. With him worked in common other 
missionaries from the Methodists, Baptists, and 
Presbyterians, and, according to their published ac- 
counts, with much success. 

Dr. Riley has obtained a church for his con- 
gregation ; the Reverend Dr. Butler, of the Metho- 
dists, another for his — both solid handsome stone 
structures ; and I believe churches are to be had 
at a very reasonable price all over the country. 



88 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

Of late, I understand each of these Protestant 
denominations has thought it best to do its own 
work, and get its aid separately. 

We hoped to meet Dr. Eiley here, but we shall 
be disappointed, as he is detained in New York 
longer than he expected. 

I wish I could tell you what he has done and is 
likely to do, as I know it would much interest you. 
His heart is in his work, and he is energetic and 
sanguine, but he and others like him are often in 
danger of their lives, and already two or more lives 
of missionaries have been taken. 

There is a soreness among the Mexicans because 
the United States Government have not yet recog- 
nised that of President Diaz. Speaking to an 
Englishman about it, he said the delay was simply 
that the United States might get a better tariff 
for their goods — its professed doubts about the 
stability of the Diaz Government not existing at all. 
I have seen Jonathan's " notions " even in Malta 
and Sicily ; his rifles and bayonets in the hands of 
the soldiers of the Khedive. (What was Birming- 
ham about V) He is always on the alert — always 
trying to get his products into other countries 
cheaply, or for nothing if he can, but he won't let 
other people's come into his on the same terms. Is 



NATIVE SILVERSMITHS. 89 

he right or not ? I have immense respect for his 
judgment on such a question, I must confess. 

I feel, with all my letter writing how very little 
idea of the country, the city, or the people, I have 
conveyed to you ; but to understand, you must see. 
I have not mentioned a hundredth part of what we 
see and hear. I have not told you of the native 
silversmiths and their street, (their work is far more 
solid than that of the Genoese, and fully as beauti- 
ful), the flower-girls, and the scores of other street 
and country people we see continually, and I have 
said no word about the strange plump black pigs 
that turn up in unexpected places by units and tens ; 
but they are only pig-skins full of pulque ; nor have 
I told you how new, striking, and attractive to the 
eye the dress and person of every individual and 
group we meet is ; but the photographs will help 
me, and I shall finish this letter by quoting some 
words from Madame Calderon de la Barca's book 
about Mexico. 

"There is not one human being or passing object 
to be seen that is not in itself a picture, or which 
would not form a good subject for the pencil. The 
Indian women with their plaited hair and little 
children slung to their backs, their large straw hats 
and petticoats of two colours, the long strings of 



90 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

carriers with their loaded mules and swarthy wild 
looking faces — the chance horseman who passes 
with his serape of many colours, his high orna- 
mental saddle, Mexican hat, silver stirrups and 
leathern boots, all is picturesque. Salvator Eosa and 
Hogarth might have travelled here to advantage, 
hand in hand." 

There is an excellent school system working now 
in cities and towns, and we intended to visit some 
of them here, but our time is too short. For the 
same reason we have to omit the public cemetery, 
where lie many of Mexico's great men (very few of 
whom by the way died in their beds), also, the Amer- 
ican and English cemeteries and the gardens of 
Tivoli and many other places. 

T has given me a scrap of her writing for you, 

to add to my letter, and here it is : — 

" We are much disappointed in the gala dress of 
the peasantry, having seen nothing of the fine lace, 
bright coloured satins or gold and silver embroidery, 
we were led to expect. The diamond rings and other 
jewels we were to see too must be now all in the 
monte pio. 

u The red and black striped petticoat is to be seen 
with an over dress of Manchester print, which last is 
more common in Mexico now perhaps than formerly. 



PICTURESQUE DRESSES. 91 

" The usual dress is a skirt of a yellowish brown 
stuff with an over dress of bright print ; a print 
handkerchief arranged with some grace over the 
head, and a reboso, an indispensable adjunct to 
the dress of a Mexican woman. 

" The flower sellers are the most picturesque in 
appearance ; they wear a white boddice with a bright 
flowing skirt, and carry a large basket of flowers on 
the head, another on the right arm, the left hand 
full of bouquets ; this, with the reboso thrown over 
the left shoulder makes up a very graceful picture, 
especially if the woman happens to be pretty. 

" While on the subject of dress you may be inter- 
ested to hear of the luxurious manner in which a 
Mexican lady does her shopping. She never thinks 
of leaving her carriage, but lets the shopmen rush 
out to her — no, no one rushes in Mexico, — they 
walk out to her deliberately, bringing silks, laces, 
lawns, every thing that . she can possibly want. 
Perhaps one reason, or the reason that she does not 
leave her carriage is, that she has no shoes or stock- 
ings on, for Mexican ladies when driving rarely 
wear them, though they are most elaborately dressed 
otherwise. They are usually Avithout a bonnet, but 
always with a fan, d VEspagnol : they lean back in 
their carriages with a languid air, not even exert- 



92 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

ing themselves to bow to their friends, but merely 
making a motion with the hand which was not 
inaptly described to us as 'twirling their fingers/ 
A good deal of coquetry is often practised in this 
way, as much depends on the manner in which the 
twirling is done. A pretty hand, flashing diamond 
rings (for gloves are left at home with the shoes and 
stockings), sparkling eyes, half concealed by the 
fan, caballeros passing and repassing that the 
twirling may be repeated, prove that the Mexican 
ladies are not less accomplished coquettes than 
their American or European sisters." 

I have omitted to tell you that opals are plentiful 
here and very cheap ; the best we have seen for 
sale have been those brought to the hotel ; many of 
them are large, but none are extraordinary otherwise. 

We are very comfortable here and shall leave the 
Iturbide with regret ; its restaurant and its cookery 
are excellent ; the chef, a Frenchman, always 
honours us by bringing in what he thinks the best 
dish himself, and everybody in the house is atten- 
tive and obliging. 

To-morrow, we leave for Puebla. 



ptt*r $a. e. 



Hotel Vera Crusano, Vera Cruz, 
13th March. 



" These mountains piercing to the sky 
With their eternal cones of ice, 
Change not, but still remain as ever, 
Unwasting, deathless and sublime." 

- Albert Pike. 

" There is a wakening on the mighty hills, 
A kindling with the spirit of the morn ! 
Bright gleams are scattered from the thousand rills, 
And a soft, visionary hue is born. " 

—Mrs. ffemans. 

Y last letter was finished as we were about 
to leave the City of Mexico. The diary will 
tell you what we have done and seen since. 

8th March. 

We leave the Iturbide this morning at six o'clock, 
driving to the station in the dark. We had seen 
the two great volcanoes daily in all their changes of 
light, shade and colour, but never as we were about 
to see them. 

As the train runs along between the sierra of 




94 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

Guadalupe and the shore of Lake Tezcuco, the sun 
rises and lights up their snowy heads and the 
mountain peaks about with a rosy tinge which 
makes the lake purple, and the whole valley, as far 
as the eye can reach a scene never to be forgotten. 

How superb it ail was, and what a delightful last 
impression of our visit it has become ! 

At Apizaco, an official of the railway, an English- 
man finds us out and offers me, as a fellow-country- 
man, his private rooms for the toilet of my party 
after their very dusty journey. No attention could 
have been more thoughtful or half so welcome, and 
it is gratefully accepted. In one of this gentleman's 
rooms was a fire-place, the only one we have met 
with in the country. 

The restaurant and its coffee and Bordeaux 
wine are excellent, but the accommodation other- 
wise is nil. 

From Apizaco, as the translation of the Spanish 
railway book says, " the most admirable perspec- 
tives are enjoyed, developing the Cordilleras ; to 
the south-east the Malintzi, and, far away in the 
distance, the Cofre de Perote, Orizaba and the 
Sierra Negra ; to the north, the mountains of 
Tlaxco, and to the south-west Iztaccihuatl and 
Popocatapetl." 



PUEBLA. 95 

While in Mexico we were on the other side of 
the two latter, and now have seen well round them. 

We arrive at Puebla at half -past three, getting 
on the way a good look at the plain and heights of 
Tlascala, whose people gave Cortes at first so much 
hindrance and trouble — at last, much great help — 
in his subjugation of Mexico. 

For the last hour of our journey a " norther " was 
blowing and clouds of sand were all about us. 
Driving to the hotel de diligentias, which is a very 
large house built in the usual way round a large 
square court, and ascending a great stone staircase 
we get to the second story, whose rooms open 
upon a wide arched cloister-looking stone gallery, 
open outside its arches to the sky above, and to the 
court below ; around this gallery are placed tropi- 
cal plants and flowers, and there is an aviary full of 
strange birds of brilliant plumage, who fill the air 
with song that is chirruppy and cheerful, if not mus- 
ical. Three large rooms are assigned to us opening 
upon this gallery ; the restaurant is good, and we 
think with reason we are well put up ; the prices are 
less than at the Iturbide. 

Like all others here, the building is of stone ; it 
was formerly a theological college, more lately a 
convent ; its iron gateway leading to our gallery has 



96 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

yet over it the initials I. H. S. — strange to meet in 
an hotel, but out of place no where. 

Puebla is well built, its streets are wide, its 
churches numerous, many of them grand and impos- 
ing ; it has its plaza and alameda, and there is an 
air of brightness and order everywhere. 

The principal churches are the cathedral, which is 
smaller than that of Mexico, but finer, the Campana 
or Jesuits' Church, and that of San Francisco. 

The cathedral occupies one side of the plaza, and 
like that of Mexico, stands on an immense stone 
platform, raised four or five feet from the plaza ; it 
is built of a very dark porphyritic stone with mas- 
sive buttresses and lofty towers ; within the effect is 
very imposing ; huge columns eighty or ninety feet 
high support a well-lighted and graceful roof. 

Like the other two churches, it is rich in gilding, 
carvings, inlaid wood- work, beautiful marble, fine 
paintings. 

Nowhere we think have we seen anything to 
equal, certainly we have not to excel, the grandeur 
and beauty of its interior. 

Its chapter room is hung with tapestries worked 
by the ladies of the court of one of the Spanish 
kings who presented them to the cathedral. In the 
sacristy are some fine old paintings ; the lavatory for 



« PUEBLA DE LOS ANGELOS." 97 

the priests, with its beautiful marble is finer than 
that in the cathedral of Mexico : and we shall none 
of us forget the full sweet rich tone of its organ and 
bells. 

But I have not told you that Puebla is a city of 
the angels, its name in full being " Puebla de los 
Angelos." Cholula, some eight or more miles off, 
was, when Cortes came, and nobody knows how long 
before, the paganest, of all pagan towns in ancient 
Anahuac ; there, was among any number of others, 
its biggest teocali, the now known all the world 
over pyramid, dedicated to their good deity Quetzal- 
coatl who founded the place, and introduced and 
fostered there everything that was clever and use- 
ful and pure and good. This god as you know had 
long gone off on some foreign tour, and was expected 
back about the time of the arrival of Cortes, fortun- 
ately for the latter as it turned out ; but all this time, 
rites and ceremonies, sacrifices to the number of fif- 
teen or twenty thousand human beings yearly were 
continually going on at Cholula, in honour of the 
absent Quetzalcoatl, and every body who had any 
religion at all went there to participate. In a word, 
it was the Mecca of the ancient Mexicans. It was 
but natural that the Spaniards should desire to found 
close to such a place, a large Christian city. In this 



98 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

desire Puebla had its origin, and it is perhaps not 
to be wondered at, that many wished and thought, 
and then said, and then believed, that " Angels 
aided the building of the new city by night, and sang 
songs over its builders by day." 

But for all this a royal ordinance from Spain was 
required and obtained for its foundation in the year 
1530 ; from the same authority came letters patent in 
1571 establishing there the Inquisition. The build- 
ings formerly used by this institution are very 
large, substantial and costly. Puebla has always 
possessed a population strongest of all in Mexico 
in its adherence to the church introduced by the 
Spaniards, and there, are yet to be found with 
no break in their ranks, its most pious and loyal 
followers. 

It is a city fair to see, and fair to see from ■ it has 
a population of seventy-five or eighty thousand, a 
famous college and a curious museum, many fac- 
tories of cotton, porcelain and glass, foundries and 
flouring mills, and is the second city in point of 
wealth and importance in the Kepublic, 

The only English speaking persons we met in 
Puebla, were the Eev. Mr. D , a Protestant mis- 
sionary from Ohio (for our introduction to whom we 
are indebted to Mrs. F ), and his wife. Mr.D 



FOUR IN HAND TO CHOLULA. 99 

told us I think that his congregation numbers one 
hundred and twenty-seven, twenty or more of whom 
are members of the orphanage, sustained by his 
Church. This seems a small number in so large a 
population, but he speaks hopefully and is zealous 
and earnest in his work. 

We visited the marble works where the onyx 
marble is cut into slabs and other shapes and 
polished ; there are some beautiful specimens being 
packed for the Paris exhibition and for England ; 
we bought some table-tops to be sent after us. 

The quarries are fifty miles off in Tecali and its 
neigbourhoocl, near the mountain el Pizarro. The. 
marble seems identical with that found in Oran, in 
Algeria : it is translucent, and much of it is like 
moss agate. 

9th March. 

Mr. and Mrs. D were good enough to pro- 
mise to engage carriages for the party, and to ac- 
company us to Cholula, which is eight or nine miles 
off; at nine o'clock this morning we depart, the 

vehicles being two coaches and four, which Mr. D 

apologized for by the assurance that they will not 
cost more than coaches and two ; and, certainly, 
the charge is small for them. The road is good, the 
day fine, a beautiful panorama is always before and 



100 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

about us, and everything is full of novelty and in- 
terest. We stop and get out at the foot of the 
great pyramid which is at the eastern end of the 
town of Cholula, though at one time in its centre. 
The pyramid is immense, but the traces of its once 
perfectly pyramidal shape are gone : it is misshapen 
and much serried and worn by the elements and 
other causes, its surface in many parts gone, and 
broken into holes. We ascended, following the path 
to the left, descending by that on the right, thus 
going round it. Its sides are full of trees, shrubs 
and plants, many of the former large and covered 
with flowers. On the top, where stood the Aztec 
temple and sacrificial stone, is a beautiful little 
church, gorgeously decorated, dedicated to the 
Virgen de los Remedios. [Don't be surprised, you 
have more than two thousand churches dedicated 
to the Blessed Virgin in England, not counting 
that of your own parish, Ste. Marie-la-bonne.] 
From its tower we could see what a large place 
Cholula has been : there were plainly visible all 
about and around, and very far from the present 
town, the lines and marks of the streets of the an- 
cient city. In the time of Cortes it contained twenty 
thousand houses within its walls, and as many more 
in its suburbs : now the houses are a few hundreds 



THE GREAT PYRAMID OF CHOLULA. 101 

only, its population about eight thousand. * The 
height of the pyramid above the plain is about one 
hundred and eighty feet ; the platform on its trun- 
cated summit is about an acre, and its square base 
covers a space of forty-four acres — a respectable 
mound indeed, for man's hands to make — but what 
a mere speck compared with the mighty mountains 
in the plain about it ! 

The pyramid is composed of layers of earth, adobe 
and burned brick. 

We have with us a pleasing little book, written 
by Mr. Zabrinski Gray, who speaks of getting a 
curious old Aztec vase from "a woman of the 
country, a full-blooded Indian, presenting one of the 

* The perpendicular height of the pyramid is 177 feet. Its base is 1,423 
feet long, twice as long as that of the great pyramid of Cheops. . . . It re 
minds us of those colossal monuments of brick work which are still seen in ruins 
on the banks of the Euphrates, and in much higher preservation on those of the 
Xile. 

On the summit stood a sumptuous temple, in which was the image of the 
mystic deity Quetzalcoatl, God of the air, with ebon features, unlike the fair 
complexion which he wore upon earth, wearing a mitre on his head waving with 
pi a mes of fire, with a resplendent collar of gold round his neck, pendants of 
mosaic turquoise in his ears, a jewelled sceptre in one hand, and a shield, curi- 
ously painted, the emblems of his rule over the winds, in the other 

Nothing could be more grand than the view which met the eye from the area 
on the truncated summit of the pyramid. Towards the north stretched that 
bold barrier of porphyritic rock which nature has reared round the valley of 
Mexico, with the huge Popocatapetl and Iztaccihuatl standing like two colos- 
sal sentinels to guard the entrance to the enchanted region. Far away to the 
south was seen the conical head of Orizaba, soaring high into the clouds, and 
nearer, the barren, though beautifully shaped Sierra de Malinche, throwing its 
broad shadows over the plains of Tlascala. — Prescott. 



102 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

most perfect types of beauty it was ever his plea- 
sure to behold." She was in a shop near the base 
of the pyramid, and " was a young creature of a 
loveliness that any land would be proud to possess, 
and a Eaphael would be privileged to paint." We 
were anxious to get some relic from the pyramid — 
a vase like Mr. Gray's if possible, and to see the 
beauty he described, so we all go to the pulque 
shop, and find her sitting behind a counter with 
two pretty children. The only relic she can find for 
us is a rude, much-worn terra cotta mask, hideously 
ugly, which was dug up in her garden. She has 
very fine black eyes, like all the women of her race, 
but as to the rest, all I can say is we tried to agree 
with Mr. Gray. She gave us large tumblers of 
pulque which we tasted but could not swallow, it 
was so abominable. It seems a harmless drink, 
milky in appearance, and about as strong as weak 
cider. 

Cholula has an immense public square, where 
Cortes perpetrated his great massacre in 1519. In 
this square is a large, strange Spanish Moorish old 
church, said to have been built by Cortes after the 
cathedral of Cordoba. It is low, very large, strangely 
decorated, and altogether something quite of itself 
and by itself. It is to be lamented that, like all the 



CHOLULA. 103 

rest of Cholula, it is dirty, dilapidated and fast go- 
ing into decay. Another church we went to see 
was a bright and only exception to all this. It had 
just been renovated, re-painted, frescoed and gilded. 
We went to get luncheon for our party where it had 
been ordered and partly prepared, but we were 
driven from the house by its unsavouriness ; so we 
got some biscuits and fruit at a nondescript sort of 
shop, and, resuming our fours-in-hand, returned 
again past the great pyramid to Puebla. 

We had often heard of Jalapa (pronounced "Hal- 
ah-pa ") as a place of great attraction and beauty, 
and read in the Spanish railway book on board 
ship that an Englishman who visited it for a day 
was so charmed with it that he never left it ; also, 
that "its ladies are famed for their beauty and 
hospitality to strangers." 

Of course we must go to Jalapa. It would be 
delightful to go across country to it from here, but 
we are told we should certainly be robbed, so the 
only alternative is to keep to the "ferro-carrill," 
the iron road, and to go round by Vera Cruz. 

We leave Puebla with regret on Monday, the 11th 
March, at midnight, a favourite hour for starting 
trains in Mexico ; but this gives us daylight to de- 
scend the mountains from Boca, which delight us 



104 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

as much as in our ascent. We get to Orizaba at 
half-past nine the next morning, and take up our 
old quarters in the hotel de diligentias. 

The heat is much greater than when we were 
here last. A steamer leaves Vera Cruz for New 
Orleans on the 20th of March; another on the 15th 
of April. The coming heat, the intended sailing of 
the opera troupe in the latter, and her probably 
having to take soldiers to Matamoras, decide us to 
sail on the 20th of March. 

13th March. 

We bid adieu to Orizaba at ten this morning. At 
the station we were accosted by a very Spanish 
looking old gentleman, who turns out to be a Scotch- 
man, or Scotch-Canadian, Dr. B . He had lived, 

he said, many years in Canada, and was in Windsor, 
in 1838, when poor Dr. Hume of the Medical Staff, 
was brutally murdered and his body mangled by 
the pirates wiio attacked and burned it ; some of 
these men, with swift justice, Colonel Prince "shot 
accordingly ; " more of them were hanged in Lon- 
don a few weeks after. Of the many well-known 
Canadians of that time about whom Dr. B in- 
quires, the only one yet alive is Dr. M of 

London, with whom he was at the Edinburgh Uni- 
versity. 



CORDOBA. 105 

As the train stops at the station of Cordoba 
we get a good look at the town, and a good 
run about a garden above it. The town seems 
well built : there are many domes and spires, and 
the scenery about it is much like that about Ori- 
zaba, but the valley below it is more contracted. 
Vegetation is much more abundant and rich 
than there, and for an obvious reason — it is in 
the tierras calientes. Here, the scientific American 
sailor, Maury, successfully introduced the quina 
tree. The country in its neighbourhood produces 
enormous crops of tobacco, sugar and coffee. We 
intended to pay Cordoba a visit of two days, but 
deny ourselves the pleasure, as we are told the ac- 
commodation would be very indifferent ; indeed it is 
doubtful whether we should get any. We descend 
the Chiquihuite mountains, cross the San Alejo and 
Chiquihuite bridges, with more barranca scenery, 
run through tunnels and come to Atoyac; here 
is a grand and lovely waterfall, and for some reason 
the train stops a couple of minutes just as we are 
above it, giving us a good view of it. Atoyac is less 
than fifteen hundred feet above the sea, and the 
heat manifestly increases as we approach the great 
sandy plain and its fever-giving marshes upon the 
sea side of which is Vera Cruz. We arrive at Vera 



106 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

Cruz at five in the afternoon as we left it, in a sand 
storm, and put up at the Hotel Vera Cruzano, in 
order to be near the station, from which we depart 
at five to-morrow morning for Jalapa. 

Some dinner and a long evening make us rather 
like Vera Cruz ; apropos to the former, the fish 
called at New Orleans the red snapper is very- 
abundant here, but far superior to his northern rela- 
tions. I wish I could give you a bit of his tail, which 
is astonishingly the best part of him. 

There are a great many public and private schools, 
two well sustained hospitals, and in what was the 
church of San Francisco, an excellent public library; 
water has been introduced from the Jamapa Elver, 
tending much to the health and cleanliness of the 
city, which contains within its walls 10,000 inhabit- 
ants, 4,000 outside them. 

Education is compulsory here — think of that ! The 
Legislature of the State of Vera Cruz, whose prin- 
cipal town this is, in 1873, declared " primary in- 
struction and freedom of teaching to be obligatory," 
and ordered the establishment of one school for boys 
and another for girls, for each 2,000 inhabitants, and 
one for adults in every town of the State, and in 
each place of any industrial or commercial import- 
ance. The same law imposed upon the proper 



VERA CRUZ. 107 

authorities, the obligation of establishing schools in 
jails and prisons, and recommended to landed pro- 
prietors and owners of factories and workshops, the 
adoption of a like system in their respective spheres, 
that the children of the day-labourers should par- 
take of the benefits of primary instruction. To make 
obligatory education effective, penalties and rewards 
have been enacted, " the first consisting in the pri- 
vation of certain offices and rights in regard to the 
fathers of families, who fail to comply with the law, 
the second limited to exemption from active service 
in the National Guard, and from the payment of any 
taxes arising therefrom." 

We have admired the alameda and its rows of 
cocoa-trees, and the Indian laurels in the gardens of 
the plaza, and bought a lot of chocolate, famously 
good here, to take home with us. 

The rest of the party have "retired," as our Amer- 
ican cousins call going to bed, long since ; and scrib- 
bling far into the night, I acknowledge to myself 
that the city of the " True Cross," or this its hotel, 
or both, are hot and stuffy. 



Krttci It 7. 



Jalafa, Mexico. 

17th March. 
[E have been more than three days in this 
quiet old town, which is full of steep 
streets, srone houses, and flower gardens. 
It is within the district of country from whence 
comes '...".._ The drug takes its name from the 
town, and is made from the turnip-like root of a 
large convolulus growing wild about here. 

Jalapa contains 12,000 inhabitants, and is 4,350 
feet above the sea. Its climate may be well put 
down as that of the temperate region ; it is very 
healthy, and is much resorted to by invalids from 
the hot lands and coast. Town and country are 
full of flowers : even the little plaza in front of the 
i ftthedral has a garden, in which are some beautiful 
tropical flowers and shrubs, English roses, a pretty 
little fountain and pool. All this is public, and 
seemingly unguarded, for in Jalapa, as elsewhere in 
Mexico, dowers, trees, fountains, appear to be quite 



FA SO DE SAN JUAN. 109 

safe from vandalism. But I am getting on too 
rapidly. I am forgetting I have not brought you 
here yet, so let us go back to the Hotel Vera 
Crusano and Vera Cruz and my diary. 

14th March. 

We are called very early, get some coffee and a 
roll, and are at the station before five o'clock, to be 
stowed away, with a dozen other passengers, in a 
long, street-car sort of carriage, pulled, with two 
others in front of it, by a locomotive. We go on in 
the dark for an hour or so across the sandy desert 
when we reach Paso cle San Juan, twenty miles, 
where some palm and other trees begin. 

The air is sultry and heavy — indeed there seems 
no air. What there is of atmosphere depresses, 
loads and wearies us. The expedition at its com- 
mencement has almost made us ill. What an oven 
these hot lands must be in summer ! Day begins 
to dawn, and we find Paso de San Juan has half-a- 
dozen houses, each consisting of little more than 
four posts and a roof of palm leaves. I dose my 
party, not forgetting myself, from a pannikin of 
weak brandy and water ; considering the hour, it is 
very shocking, and is only mentioned in confidence, 
but it did us all much good — it was medicine. 



110 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

Here the locomotive is exchanged for mules, and 

Mr. T , the superintendent of the line hence to 

Jaiapa, some fifty-three miles, greets us, and says, 
to our surprise, he has been expecting us, and has 
heard all about us. 

We are packed into one of the carriages of the 
mule-train which is waiting for us, with a Jalapa 
lady, her two sons and little daughter. 

The superintendent comes with us : he is full of 
conversation and information ; he, the daylight, the 
gradual ascent, fresher air, and the four mules pull- 
ing us along at a gallop, soon drive away our weari- 
ness and wretchedness. 

Our fellow passengers are courteous and accom- 
modating ; the mules are changed at reasonably 
short stages ; they gallop on the level, down-hill 
and round curves, which latter are sharp and fre- 
quent. Behind us comes a second-class carriage, 
and behind that another, with the baggage. All 
are four-in-hand. To look behind and see them 
galloping wildly after us suggests racing ; but there 
is nothing of the kind — it is all business. 

Although Mr. T 's attention is never off the 

railway and his work, he tells us so much about 
them and himself that, in three or four hours, we 
have all known him since the beginning of the 



PVENTE NACIONAL— RINCON ADA. Ill 

American war, by the afternoon, from his early 
boyhood. He is an old bachelor, and we cannot 
but sympathize with a man who, when he first came 
to the country, " knew no Spanish, to tell the beau- 
tiful Mexican senoritas how he loved them, and now 
that he knows the language, is too old," he says, 
" to think of anything of the kind." 

About ten o'clock we pass an old Spanish fort, 
situated on a hill to our left, just above the river 
Antigua, a broad rapid jumping stream, with a very 
broken rocky bed. This we cross on a grand old 
stone bridge of many arches, formerly Puente del 
Key, now, of course, Puente Nacional. Here was 
the scene of many an engagement between the 
troops of New and Old Spain in the long time of 
the revolutionary war, for it was a favourite spot 
for catching the silver on its way from the mines or 
mint to the coast. At the confluence of the Antigua 
with the sea was old Vera Cruz ; but the river was 
not good for any purposes of navigation ; it had an 
abominable bar, and so Vera Cruz was taken away 
and put where it is. 

About six miles from Puente Nacional is Rin- 
conada, where we find the happiness of plenty of 
cold water and towels ; an excellent breakfast 
awaited us, put upon the table in a manner little to 



112 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

be expected in such a place, for, with the excep- 
tion of the house we stop at, Rinconada is only a 
small collection of huts. 

We do not see so much of green tropical foliage as 
we expected, the trees along the line being mostly 
deciduous, and it is only very early spring : many 
trees and shrubs, however, are clothed in their per- 
petual green, and some trees, without a single leaf 
on them, are covered with flowers. One tree, in par- 
ticular, attracts our attention : it is loaded with large, 

beautiful, brilliantly red flowers. Mr. T says, 

in a couple of weeks, it will have so many more that 
there will be a compact mass of them impervious to 
the sun. 

Inquiring in Mexico if this train carried any guard, 
I was answered, laughingly, " Oh, yes ; there will 
be four or five rascals to take care of you." 

I don't wish to be understood as applying that 
name to them, but certainly our guard does not look 
respectable, and I am sure no one of them " keeps 
a gig ; " roughly, strangely clad, or half clad, they 
are a dangerous-/o^^ lot, but, individually or 
collectively, strangely picturesque. 

We pass some haciendas during the day, of which 

Mr. T gives us names and history : they are, 

some of them, very large estates, many leagues in 



PLAN DEL RIO. 113 

length and breadth, but are only partially cultivated ; 
indeed, we pass thousands of acres of uncultivated 
land, which need only to be scratched andplanted to 
bring forth abundant crops in this climate ; but 
when the crops come and are ready to be harvested 
it might be no one could be found to do the harvest- 
ing, for labour is hard to get, and lazy and uncer- 
tain when you get it hereabouts, and so much of this 
rich land is going back to its wild state. As we 
drive on, always ascending, we see in the woods 
right and left of us great numbers of the organ cac- 
tus, some of them forty, fifty and more feet high — 
graceful, slight green columns, running upwards 
straight as arrows. About eight miles (twelve and 
a half kilometros) from Einconada we cross another 
river on a stone bridge of a single arch, and arrive 
at the village of Plan del Rio. This and Einconada 
are the principal places on the road, but really they, 
like the others, possess little but their names. 
Wherever we change mules, there is a table covered 
with a white cloth placed by the road-side, on which 
are tortillas, sweet cakes and fruit, claret and other 
French wine, and good fresh cold water. 

The tortilla is to the lower classes of Mexico 
what bread is to all ours. It is made from Indian 
corn, not ground, but soaked, and softened by soda 



114 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

or potash. Eeduced to a pulpy substance, it is 
beaten and rolled by the Indian women into thin 
cakes, which are cooked in an earthen dish over a 
fire, generally of dried maguey leaves. 

Here and there, we have come upon portions of 
large heavy paving, parts of the old paved road 
from Vera Cruz to Jalapa built by the Spaniards. 

A little to the left, after passing Plan del Rio, 
we see a magnificent house and grounds, all going 
into disorder and decay. This was the hacienda of 
General Santa Anna, and the house was a palace 
built by him on it. Everything of any value about 
it that could be moved is gone. There were some 
beautiful marble seats about the grounds which, we 
are told, now ornament the plaza in Jalapa. 

How often has Santa Anna's name been before 
the world, to disappear and reappear again and 
again, and what an eventful life was his ! A brave 
soldier and able general, but unstable, and too am- 
bitious of power and sway for himself, and too fond 
of money, he yet possessed immense influence over 
his countrymen. His greatest mistake was declar- 
ing himself President for life, with power to appoint 
his successor. The Mexican people wouldn't stand 
this and the rule that followed it, so there was an- 
other revolution. His last public act was his attack 



COFRE DE PEEOTE—JALAPA. 115 

upon the Government of Juarez, in 1867, for which 
he was sentenced to death, but this was commuted, 
and he was exiled. On the death of Juarez he was 
permitted to return. He afterwards lived in seclu- 
sion in the City of Mexico, where he died about 
two years ago. 

Our drive increases in beauty as the day wears 
on, and by three o'clock we have cool, refreshing 
air — we are in the mountain country. 

Orizaba has been long in sight on our left, and 
we have now seen this great volcano, as we have 
the two others, from all points of view — we have 
seen all round them. 

Soon a slight turn of the road brings another 
mountain into our view. It is very large and im- 
posing ; much nearer to us than Orizaba, but is 
without snow. It is the Co/re de Perote. Near to 
the foot of it is Jalapa, where we arrive at half-past 
four o'clock. 

Leaving the railway-station we are guided up a 
steep street to an entrance which leads into the 
Hotel de Mexico. Within is a court-yard, as usual, 
open to the sky, surrounded with vases of plants 
and flowers. A large stone stair-case takes us to 
the next story, where are more plants and flowers 
and an aviary. We get good rooms, and there is 



116 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

promise of cleanliness, comfort and rest. And now, 

having brought you here, my dear A , I can add 

we have had them all, and even some of that leisure 
which comes always in little retired places like 
Jalapa ; but we have not been idle. We have been 
all round and about the town, and even ten miles 
out of it, to the Village of Coatepec, which is no- 
thing of itself, but is beautifully situated in an 
undulating, fertile country. We went to it by a 
tram-road, worked by mules, up and down steeper 
hills and round sharper curves than ever tram- 
road traversed before. The mules were poor, half- 
starved — a sad contrast to those which brought us 
from Vera Cruz on the English Railway Company's 
line, which were well cared for under the eye of their 
superintendent, and saved from the ill-treatment 
these poor brutes suffer. And to-day three of our 
party dined with the superintendent, meeting Mr, 

T — and his beautiful bride, to whom we had 

been introduced in Mexico. He is a Director of 
the Railway Company, and is here, on its business, 
on his way to England. 

But we have not ascended the Co/re de Perote, 
although we are just under it. I have already given 
you my humble sentiments about getting up moun- 
tains, and this one is far above the line I drew. It 



COFRE BE PEROTE. 117 

is 13,552 feet high, including the cofre, the trunk or 
box-shaped monolinth of rock, standing erect out- 
side and above its summit, from which the Spaniards 
gave it its name. The ancient name of the moun- 
tain, Nauhcampateptl, signifying quadrangular moun 
tain, was given to it probably for the same reason. 
Perote is the plateau of country lying between the 
two volcanic chains of Popocatapetl and Orizaba, 
which strike north and south. 

Humboldt, whose measurement I give you, and 
who, of course, knew most about it, says this im- 
mense rock is of pumice (probably dark porphyritic 
pumice, hence its being called porphyry in all the 
books but his), and that it was carried up during 
the upheaval of the mountain. He instances a simi 
lar phenomenon as having occurred in Vesuvius in 
1834." 

There was a large convent of Franciscan monks 
here until the law abolished them ; this convent, 
which is a very fine building, and the cathedral are 
the most noteworthy buildings. Both are said to 
have beeen commenced by Cortes. 

We have been to the market again and again, and 
are never tired of looking at the two or three hun- 
dred Indians, men and women, who attend it, with 

* 5 Cosmos, 326 n. 



118 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

fruit, wild roots, flowers, vegetables, shawls, se- 
rapes, &c. 

We got some arrowroot from them, which, cooked 
as a vegetable, is very good. 

Apropos to the Indians, I don't think either I or 

T have told you what serapes, rebosos, or tilmas 

are. The serape may be merely a blanket with a 
hole for the head to go through, but it is often of 
very fine wool, or mixed wool and cotton, and 
striped in bright colours. The reboso in use is the 
female serape ; it is a long shawl of fine cotton, 
very neatly made by the Indian women, and orna 
mented at the ends with net- work and fringes, some 
times of silk. In warm weather they wear it 
hanging over the arm, in cold weather wrapped 
gracefully around the head, with one end thrown 
over the shoulder. 

The tilmatli of the Aztecs, or the tilma, as it is 
now called, is a square, short cloak, made to tie at 
the ends across the breast or over one shoulder. 

Nor have I told you of the beautiful feather and 
wax work we saw in Mexico. You read much of 
the Aztec's art in the former in Prescott, and they 
possess it still. Little specimens of their skill in 
feather -work and drawing combined, in the shape 
of sketches of birds and flowers on cards finished 



MEXICAN FEATHER AND WAX WORK. 119 

with feathers are very common, and many were 
brought to the hotel for sale. Their wax-work 
would make Madame Tussaucl die of envy if she 
hadn't died long ago. The little figures of caballero 
and steed, of the water-seller, the charcoal-seller, of 
every other street-crier are perfect — no sculptor, no 
painter could do them better, and they are got up 
and dressed to the very life. We are loaded with 
them. 

Jalapa becomes more and more pleasing. It 
grows upon us, and if I were satisfied that walks 
and drives for some miles about it were quite safe, 
we should make a much longer stay here. If it has 
a fault, it is that its climate is too rainy ; the clouds 
are caught between sea and table land by the Cofre, 
and made to discharge — hence its many flowers and 
rich vegetation. We have had much rain during 
our stay, and I have made a calculation, from this 
and other data, that the rainfall in Jalapa is about 
one-fourth that of England, and one-sixth that of 
Ireland. 

I hope I may not be cross-examined on this 
statement, for, though I think I have nearly hit the 
truth, the reasons for my conclusions may not 
hold water. 

In one of our walks, we passed a music school in 



120 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

full operation — I am not punning — and stopping to 
listen to its sweet sounds, were invited to come in 
by the master. We stayed within some time, and 
were much gratified by the skill, voice and taste 
displayed. Master and pupils were all Indians. 

Jalapa, like Cordoba, is very Spanish. Balconies 
are numerous, and the latticed iron cage outside 
the windows as common here as there. Both these, 
by-the-way, have a good deal to do with Mexican 
courtships and marriages — in the towns at all 
events. The various ways and means used in Eng- 
land, Canada, &c, of man's paying his addresses to 
woman, the " courting," " sweet-hearting," " spark- 
ing," " keeping company," &c, would not be toler- 
ated. When a gentleman has serious intentions 
towards a lady, he shows himself in the street near 
her balcony or window, casting continual and most 
respectful glances at it; if he can, looking love. 
This is unheeded for a time, but, often repeated, it 
generally softens the senoritds heart, and she ap- 
pears at balcony or window for a moment ; the 
lover, thus encouraged, comes again and again, each 
time drawing the lady, who lingers longer and 
longer, that he may gaze at her, and she see more 
of him. Whether there is any dumb show or strik- 
ing of attitudes I was not told, but no word is 



COURTSHIP AMONG THE MEXICANS. 121 

spoken, at all events, so far as the outside world 
knows. A crisis comes in these performances, in 
which there is either parental interference or paren- 
tal consent, in which latter case the parties are 
never permitted to be together, or to enjoy the 
romance and sweets of courtship in each other's 
society, or to discuss their future ; all that has to 
wait for the marriage, which follows this singular 
beginning. But there is never any doubt as to 
what this beginning means ; it is never, like chops 
and tomato sauce, or the harmless attentions and 
conversations of intentionless gentlemen to pleasing 
ladies elsewhere, liable to misconstruction. 

We have not met the Englishman who could not 
tear himself away from Jalapa, nor have we seen 
the ladies or any of them " famed for their beauty 
and hospitality to strangers ; " but the husband of 
the lady, our fellow-passenger from Vera Cruz, has, 
in Spanish fashion, placed " his house, his servants, 
mules and carriages at my service ; they are all 
mine." 

I don't know who would be the more embar- 
rassed, he or I, if I took him at his word. 

March 18. 
We leave Jalapa this morning with much regret 



122 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

and some serious thought of another visit to it some 
day. We have Orizaba in sight for nearly thirty 
miles of our way : what a glorious mountain it is, 
and how immensely higher it looks than when we 
first saw it ! The reason is simply that our first 
view was when we were up close to the table land 
from whence it springs ; now we are low down in 
the hot lands. The day is beautifully clear, and we 
see far up its sides from its base many shades of green, 
which we are told are mostly dense pine forest ; 
above this the coloring is gray and brown, and then 
the snow and ice to the peak top, fascinating to look 
at, but dazzling to the eyes in this bright sun. Ac- 
cording to Messieurs Doighon and Huerta, who 
ascended it, the crater is 6,000 yards in circumfe- 
rence (nearly three and a half miles) ; its diameter 
from north to south 2,500 yards ; from east to west, 
1,500 yards. 

At Binconada an excellent luncheon is awaiting 

us, and we get an hour's rest. Mr. and Mrs. T , 

with the superintendent lead our line of carriages : 
we go down much faster than we came up, and as 
we descend the heat becomes hotter and hotter. 

We find vegetation has much increased, spring 
advanced along the whole line of road during our 
few days' absence ; going up we saw innumerable 



RETURN TO VERA CRUZ. 123 

round bunches of what seemed dry sticks in the 
trees, which I took for birds' nests, so like were they 
to the rooks' nests in English elms ; coining back, 
they are clusters of beautiful buds and flowers — 
they are orchids. 

We arrive at Vera Cruz at 5 p.m., and at the sta- 
tion Mr. T , the superintendent, has to say good- 
bye to us. He is a genial warm-hearted South- 
erner, and we shall not soon forget the kindness he 
has shown us, though it is rendered perhaps, not 
so much on our own accounts as because we arc 
passengers of the company he serves. 

Vera Cruz, everybody said, possessed no carriages 
of any kind, but a ricketty vehicle with a pair of 
much worn mules presented itself at the Hotel 
Vera Cruzano. The driver refused to take any 
luggage, and, carrying three of the party to the 
Hotel de Mexico, something over 200 yards, de- 
manded four dollars, and would make no abatement. 
I wanted to pay him to avoid any annoyance, but 
Van W , who had offered him two dollars, re- 
fused to do it. The result was the man got nothing, 
for we heard no more of him. I much wished to 
get on board the ship to-night, but it is out of the 
question, as there has been a "norther," and the 
sea is beating heavily over the mole still. 



124 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

Really Vera Cruz seems not what it is repre- 
sented to be. There is no sickness in it now. It has 
baths, water- works, gas, and the sapilotes (buzzards) 
carry off and devour all the refuse which the inhabi- 
tants leave at their doors for them. I saw these 
birds doing this with as much deliberation as if 
they were unfeathered scavengers, but, of course, 
they took the choice pieces first. 

The town looks clean and bright as we walk about 
in the late evening, and sounds of pleasing music 
mingle with the beating of the surf. There is a bright 
moon, and everything seems to bear witness that 
the bad name given to the place in former days is 
no longer merited ; but I mean to get out of it as 
soon as I can. 

We are at the Hotel de Mexico, which is crowded, 
and so we have rooms at the top of the house — 
perhaps all the better for us, as they are more airy 
than below. The rooms on the sea side have a plea- 
sant air in them ; on the other side they have not. 

Heat and a deficient mosquito net keep me, but 
happily not the rest of the party, awake nearly all 
night, during the latter part of which I hear a man, 
not many rooms away, retching violently. 

Elsewhere I should have promptly set this down 
to the patient having gone to bed "half-seas over," 



EL VOMITO OR DRUNKENNESS, WHICH? 125 

and that he was very ill from it, and it served him 
right ; but the darkness, heat, mosquitoes, and the 
venue being Vera Cruz, all tended to another con- 
clusion : it could only be el vomito, and all the plea- 
sant appearances of last evening were mere appear- 
ances, — the demon, not of drunkenness, but of yel- 
low fever, was here still ! Drowsily thinking all 
this over and over again, sleep came and took it 
away from me. 

March 19. 

A bright, lovely morning, and so clear and fresh : 
they say it is always clear before a " norther " 
tho' — I wonder if another is coming. The day is 
charming, and no thought of the noises in the night 
disturb the enjoyment of it. 

But my purpose to get on board ship remains un- 
changed, though there is not that unanimity I ex- 
pected among my party on that question. u It is so 
nice here, and we want to shop ; and what is the 
good of going to the ship the day before she sails?" 
is put forward more than once, to meet with this 
answer : " The ship is safe, the city may not be ; 
it is smooth water, and that may not last long ; we 
will go now." So the shopping is hurried, last looks 
are taken at plaza and trees, bags are packed, and 
rooms left to be returned to no more. 



126 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

I should like to telegraph to Canada by way of 
New Orleans, but the line is out of order, again the 
monkeys have broken the wires. 

By noon we are clear of hotel and custom-house, 
and taking a boat, are soon with all our impedi- 
menta again on board the good steam-ship City of 
Mexico, and re-possessed of our old state rooms. 

We sail to-morrow for New Orleans. 



fetter %o. 8. 



S.S. City of Mexico, Vera Cruz Harbour, 

March 20. 

Ifl^gpgSjIHEN I finished my last letter to you yester- 
Ka/S! day, T had no idea of beginning another 
here ; but I have more leisure than I can 
employ, and am likely to have much more before 
we sail; when that is to be no one can say at 
present. 

Waking about one this morning, I stepped out of 
my cabin, which is on deck, to look at the night, 
and was staggered and all but thrown down by the 
wind, of which I had had no suspicion, so soundly 
had I slept. 

A " norther " had come, and was in full blast. 
We were tearing at our anchors ; just a- head of us 
was a great lump of a brig with her stern, on which 
was painted "Sarah Fraser, Portland" within 
seventy yards or so of us. She was tearing at her 
anchors too, and at her every rise I expected her to 
be upon us. On our right, about two hundred yards 



128 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

or so behind us, was an American man-of-war, tear- 
ing at her anchors. All round us, outside the space 
where was anchorage and absence of surf, — in a 
word, outside the harbour were shoals of coral reef, 
covered with raging, leaping, flying surf: one of 
these about three hundred yards behind, and directly 
to leeward of us, was la lavendera (the washer- 
woman), upon which no ship could hold together 
half an hour. Connecting the brig, ourselves, and 
this abominable shoal rapidly in my mind, I thought 
how very de trop the Sarah Fraser was, ivhere she 
was ; that if her cable parted, as it might at any 
moment, she would instantly be down upon us with 
a blow and a weight so immense that we should 
part our cable too, and off we should both go to la 
lavendera. 

The "norther" certainly was, and as I write is, tre- 
mendous 5 but, comparing it with the gales of the 
North Atlantic, I should say they were much more 
mighty and frightful. 

What impressed me most during my first few min- 
utes on deck was — first, our very uncomfortable sur- 
roundings, and next the unearthly, fiendish hiss of 
the "norther." I never heard anything in gale or 
hurricane like it, and until the ear became a little 
accustomed to it it was really terrifying. 



A "NORTHER." 129 

But with all this, what a beautiful scene it was ! 
There was the clearest sky and the brightest moon 
that ever shone, lighting up everything from the 
fairy- looking sleeping city to the painted name on 
the stern of the brig. Away before us on our right 
was the Castle of San Juan d'Ulloa, looking as it 
never looks in daylight : close under its lee were 
some small craft snugly placed, and to the left and 
far in front of us was a big Liverpool steamer, like 
ourselves, riding out the gale. Captain Mcintosh, 
our excellent captain, was on deck, and I had an 
hour's chat with him. I suggested he ought to have 
steam up, but he said he didn't think the weather 
was bad enough. I didn't believe him, and had no 
doubt he had already given the order for it ; and 
I was right, for not an hour after, our steam was 
up, and I went to bed again with no more anxieties 
about la lavendera or the Sarah Fraser. 

21st March. 
We had the "norther" all day yesterday, our sailing 
day, in its full violence ; it blows still, but is more 
subdued. We shall probably not sail till late to- 
morrow, by which time the sea will be down suffi- 
ciently to enable us to get our passengers and 
freight. 



130 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

This afternoon, Captain B of the United 

States frigate came on board with Dr. 

T -, the surgeon of his ship. We learn from 

them that the cable of their best and holding anchor 
parted before daylight yesterday morning, and but 
for having steam up they would have gone on the 
shoals ; but men of war are never caught napping 
in this respect. 

Captain B is sailor-like, brusque, chatty ; 

Dr. T , like all naval surgeons whom I have 

met, is travelled and well read. 

The war which threatens the peace of all Europe 
inevitably comes into our conversation, and Captain 
B— — imparts to me his settled conviction that 
England will soon be at war with Russia and some 
other Power, probably Prussia, and " then will come 
the Battle of Dorking /" 

He says this with no air of sadness or solemnity 
befitting the thought of such a catastrophe and its 
consequences to all the world, but rather with one 
of elation and gladness, which surprises me, for I 
have long believed that if there were haters of Eng- 
land among the Americans, even they would not 
like to see her "whipped" by anybody but them- 
selves. 

I humbly suggest that the " Battle of Dorking' * 



ANCIENT RUINS OF MEXICO. 131 

was only written to frighten England out of her 
Volunteer system ; that it is never likely to occur, and 
that besides she has ridden out many storms more 
dangerous than the present one, and will live and 
flourish long after this is over. 

These gentlemen remain on board to dinner, and 
the consequence to me is a very pleasing two hours' 
conversation with them. 

Speaking of the ruins of ancient buildings in 

Mexico, Dr. T tells us that there lives in Vera 

( ruz a Mexican gentleman who has made the an- 
tiquities of his country his especial study ; that he 
has deciphered the inscriptions found at Palenque, 
Uxmal, and other places ; that he has discovered 
that the Aztec calendar stone built into the cathe- 
dral at Mexico is only calculated and intended for 
half the year, and that he found the stone for the 
other half in the woods near Tuxpan, imbedded in 
the earth ; that he has many curious manuscripts 
and other relics connected with the ancient history 
of the country, and if I land to-morrow an hour's talk 
with him may be attainable. 

Continuing the subject of these ruins, Dr. T 

adds that the Emperor Maximilian had some very 
fine large photographs of them taken by a Parisian 
artist whom he sent to them for the purpose with 



132 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

a strong guard, and that Dr. Trowbridge, the 
United States Consul at Vera Cruz, has some of 
these photographs in his possession. 

22nd March. 

The " norther " has passed away, but there is still a 
good deal of sea. About 11 o'clock I manage to 
get ashore, and, hastening to the United States 
Consulate, have the good fortune to find Dr. Trow- 
bridge, the Consul, disengaged. I tell him the ob- 
ject of my visit, and in a moment a number of large 
beautiful photographs are placed before me. They 
are numbered, have their titles in French, and the 
names "Charnay, photogr. Gide, editeur, Paris," at 
the foot, in the left-hand corner of each. The exe- 
cution is beautiful, and their subjects have long 
been matter of great interest to me. The Consul 
tells me I may take them away with me, and have 
as many copies taken as I like, returning him the 
originals and one copy for himself. I gladly accept 
his terms, and he leaves the room for a few minutes 
while I am devouring the photographs, which I can 
hardly believe I may carry off. 

It occurs to me, what an impressively respectable 
appearance I must have ! Here am I, a stranger, a 
foreigner, suddenly entrusted with property of great 



SENOR J. M. MELGAR. 133 

value and beauty by a gentleman who never before 
saw or heard of me. But the Consul soon returns 
and scatters this vanity to the winds. He brings a 

small packet of handkerchiefs which Mrs. F 

has been kind enough to send for T to his care, 

and that packet is the sole and only reason for his 
trust in me.'" 

He tells me that Senor J. M. Melgar is the savant 
whom I seek ; that he possesses more knowledge 
than any one else of ancient Mexico, all acquired in 
the country by severe study, labour and research, 
and that he is an honorary member of, and has 
medals from, several learned societies of Spain and 
France. 

The Cousul knows him very well : he confirms 
what Dr. T says of him, and adds what I al- 
most fear to write, it is so at variance with all I 
have read on the subject, that Senor Melgar de- 
clares all the old Toltec inscriptions are partly or 
wholly in Egyptian character, or in a character very 
similar. 



* I was for some time under the impression that these photographs had never 
been published, but I see in Mr. Baldwin's "Ancient America," mention is 
made of " a recent French volume by Desire' Charnay, which is accompanied 
by a folio volume of photographs. " Although I miss the name of Gide, I infer 
that this folio contains all the photographs, part of which only I obtained. 

Messrs. Stanton and Vicars, of Toronto, copied them most admirably forme. 



134 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

He is eccentric and difficult to find at short 
notice, and with much regret I have to give 
up the prospect of seeing him ; but I hope vet to 
find in print the information he must have given to 
the societies whose medals he bears. * Returning to 

* My copy of " Ancient America " is old — 1872. Finding no word of Senor 
Melgar's discoveries in it, I sent for the last edition (1878), but found that was 
only a reprint of the first. Anxious for further information about them, I ad- 
dressed a letter to the Hon. Mr. Baldwin, informing him of all I had heard, 
and begging him to tell me if he had any knowledge of them, and what he 
thought of them, adding he might be assured I would make no use of his reply 
without his authority, and inclosing my card. I felt I was as much doing a ser- 
vice as seeking a favour ; but I fear Mr. Baldwin thinks otherwise, and that 
my addressing him even on a subject so interesting to himself and his many 
readers, however courteously it was done, was, in his judgment, a liberty not 
to be taken by a stranger, for my letter has not been noticed. I do not, how- 
ever, regret my sin, as, at all events, my information is in good hands : if it be 
worth anything it will bear fruit. 

With better success, I wrote to the Consul at Vera Cruz for more informa- 
tion on the subject, and with a request that search might be made to complete 
the set of photographs. 

To-day (22nd Aug., 1879), just as I am sending these last sheets off to the 
press, I receive the following kind letter in reply : — 

" U. S. Consulate, Vera Cruz, 

"Aug. 9, 1879. 
" Mr. H. C E. Becher, 

" Thornwood, London, Canada. 

" Dear Sir, — Yours of 25th June came to my office while I was visiting the 
Capitol, and hence is delayed the answer. 

" Mr. Melgar is not here now, but I will give you what I have heard and 
what I believe to be true : 

" He is an hon. member of the Archaeological Societies of London and Paris, 
and has medals for original investigations from both. The other half of the 
calendar stone (the first half being at the Cathedral in Mexico City) was found 
by Senor Mulgara few leagues back of Mizantla, near Tuxpan — i.e., Mizantla 
is near Tuxpan. Melgar has no theory that I have heard of as to how the 
stones (calendar) were separated, if ever in the same vicinity. There are noble 
ruins in the neighbourhood of Mizantla, and the calendar is still among them. 



DEPARTURE FROM VERA CRUZ. 135 

the ship, I find that Captain B has carried off my 

party and some other ladies in his gig to luncheon. 

Upon their return, they are warm in their praises of 

the hospitality and courtesy of their host and his 

officers. All our passengers are on board, among 

them some nice people from New York and Utica, 

and at two o'clock, although it is Friday, we sail for 

New Orleans. 

23rd March. 

We pass the wreck of the Havana again, and 
anchor off Tuxpan, which we leave at 2 p.m. 

During our stay here we saw a large shark play- 
ing about the ship with nearly the quickness of a 
trout ; salt pork, with a hook and chain, in a minute 
from its touching the water, bring about his sus- 
pension at the ship's side. They want to get his 
liver, that being worth money, but don't seem to 
know how to do it ; the quart er-master stands on 
the chain that holds the monster, and has a knife 
between his teeth for the purpose, but his foothold 



" As to the last links in the photos., I have tried to restore them, but have 
as yet failed. Should I be able to get the completed set, will not forget to send 
you the missing numbers. I thank you for the interest you have given to these 
photos., and hope I may have the pleasure of reading your book on this interest- 
ing country. 

" With my kindest regards, I am, dear sir, 

" Yours respectfully, 

" S. T. Trowbridge." 



136 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

is so unsteady he does not nse it, and every moment 
I expect to see him fall down the shark's throat, 
which is wide open. A large boat full of Aztecs 
comes alongside, and the shark is handed over 
to their tender mercies. They know what to 
do ; he is floated alongside them, his head held 
well up by the chain and hook ; one of them 
opens a big clasp knife, cuts a line some five feet 
long or so in the shark's side, out come three or 
four bushels of liver, &c, which are carefully stowed 
in the boat, the hook is removed from his mouth, 
and the shark sinks to swim no more. 

Scarcely was this shark disposed of, when ano- 
ther was hooked in the same way, and suspended 
from the ship's side ; the boat full of Mexicans had 
gone, so the crew had to deal with him. We heard 
of countless shots from passengers' revolvers being 
fired into his head, without making him move his 
horrible eyes ; of immense bare beef-bones, large 
stones, and some half-digested fish being taken from 
his stomach, and that he, like the other, was thir- 
teen feet and some inches long. 

Sunday, 24th March. 
We arrived off Tampico, where it is very hot, at 
five this morning, and sail again at 2 p.m. with fruit, 



BOBBERY AND BRIGANDAGE. 137 

vegetables, turtle, and many fowls and turkeys added 
to our stock. I have omitted to tell you that the 
distance on our course between Vera Cruz and 
New Orleans is nine hundred miles. 

I must now make some mention of a subject to 
which I have scarcely alluded. Perhaps Mexico- 
was never so free from robbery and brigandage as 
it now is, but the material for both are present in 
city and country, and both exist, All who come 
here should take heed of where they go, and of the 
hour of their going and staying, and ask for infor- 
mation in all proper quarters, especially if ladies 
are of the party. 

I took care never to be far off the rail or tram- 
ways unless in much frequented thoroughfares, and 
by daylight ; the occasion of our drive from Puebla 
to Cholula, and the returning from parties at night, 
half a mile or so from our hotel in the City of Mex- 
ico, were the only exceptions to this rule, but I was 
never without some anxiety on the subject, having 
ladies with me, and was always circumspect and 
watchful. 

It was during the French occupation that brig- 
andage most flourished. The diligences between 
Vera Cruz and Mexico were frequently stopped and 
the passengers stripped of all their money and valu- 



138 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

ables by one set of miscreants, and then again stop- 
ped by another set, who would beat them for part- 
ing with the riches they had lost, and then take 
from them every shred of their clothing. It was no 
uncommon thing to see the diligence stop before an 
hotel in the City of Mexico and the passengers rush 
from it, with blanket or newspaper— anything to 
hide their want of garments. If we are to believe 
what travellers say, the danger of being robbed and 
ill-treated is still great, but it is apparent that the 
present government is doing all it can to put the 
trouble down with a strong hand and quick justice. 

March 26th. 

We got into the Mississippi, by the South Pass, 
at five this morning, just escaping a severe gale, or 
rather its effects at sea, for it follows us up the 
river all the way to New Orleans. We are again 
gratified with the perfume of orange blossoms; 
there are hundreds of trees full of fruit and flower 
along the banks of the river. 

At six o'clock we arrive at New Orleans, and find 
awaiting us a heap of letters from England, India, 
and Canada. 

So the Mexican part of our outing is over, leaving 
us many regrets that it is over. But we have yet 



DEPARTURE FROM NEW ORLEANS. 139 

more than a month on our hands in which we can 
get a good rest here, and then take a leisurely look 
at the Southern States, including Florida. 

We have been much pleased during our stay here 

to receive a visit from Colonel F the United 

States Minister to Mexico, now on his way there. 

He was good enough to take some trouble to find 
us out at the St. Charles, and through his kind 
thought we are invited to visit the beautiful club- 
house and gardens of the Louisiana Jockey Club. 

We left New Orleans on the 4th of April, visiting 
Montgomery, Atlanta, Augusta, and Savannah. 
From the latter place we went South again, to Flo- 
rida, by the Inland Navigation route. 

We went to Fernandina, where, by the way, is a 
beautiful new hotel, to Jacksonville, and then up 
the St. John River, and by rail to St. Augustine. 

Having seen enough of Florida, we returned to 
Savannah, and from there we went to Charleston, 
Wilmington, Richmond, White Sulphur Springs, 
Staunton, Harper's Ferry, Washington, and Balti- 
more. 

From Baltimore we came to the Falls of Niagara 
by Harrisburgh, Williamsport, Watkyn's Glen, and 
Rochester. 

At the Falls of Niagara we stayed two or three 



140 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

days at Clark Hill, which overlooks the rapids and 
Horse-shoe Fall. This morning, the 29th April, at 
ten o'clock, we left the Falls, and at two this after- 
noon our trip is over, we are again at home. 

We have been absent eleven weeks, have travelled 
some six thousand miles, and have had a very en- 
joyable outing. The Mexican part of it was simply 
delightful, and we shall always have pleasing memo- 
ries of it. But after it all we better appreciate our 
own home and Dominion. Taking Canada all in all, we 
think we have seen no state or country in our tour 
that is preferable or equal to it. If its winters are 
a little too long, its summers too hot, its climate is, 
perhaps, the most healthful and enjoyable in the 
world, and it makes its people strong, hardy, ener- 
getic. 

In it life and property are safe ; the law is always 
supreme and carried out by its own officers; the 
people God fearing, law-abiding. 

The Government is the freest in the world — like 
that of England, directly from the people ; and here, 
as there, no Ministry can stand a day that is not 
supported by a majority of them through their re- 
presentatives in Parliament. There is no theory 
that all men are equal, but an unwritten one, truer, 



NO PLACE LIKE HOME. 141 

better, well understood and never lost sight of in 
practice, that the rights of all men are equal. 

From north to south, from the Atlantic to the 
Pacific, Canada has untold wealth in soil, forests, 
rivers, lakes, fisheries, coal, mines, minerals, metals. 
True to itself, it has a glorious future before it, 
and though last, not least, if politics run high, and 
Grit and Conservative continually forget they are 
men and brethren, these parties alike, with all 
its people, have a love for it, for their Sovereign 
and the Old Country, with which they are happily 
connected, that speaks, strongly and unmistakeably, 
of their contentment, their appreciation of the 
blessings they enjoy, and their desire for their per- 
petuation. 



APPENDIX. 

A paper about the ancient nations and races who inhabited Mexico- 
before and at the time of the Spanish Conquest ; and the ancient 
stone and other structures, and ruins of ancient cities found 
there. 



[rangs HE mountainous region of Mexico, like the Caucasus, was in- 
Wn fill naD ited from the most remote period by a great number of 
■e^P* 1 nations of different races. 

The most ancient nations of Mexico, those who considered them- 
selves as autochthones, are the Olmecs, or Hulmecs, the Xicalancs, the 
Cores, the Tepanecs, the Tarascs, the Miztecs, the Tzapotecs, and the 
Otomites. 

The Olmecs and the Xicolancs, who inhabited the elevated plain of 
Tlascala, boasted of having vanquished or destroyed, on their arrival, 
the giants, or quinametin ; a tradition founded probably on the ap- 
pearances of the fossil bones of elephants found in those elevated regions 
of the mountains of Anahuac. 

The Toltecs, migrating from their country, Huehuetlapallan, or 
Tlapallan, in the year 544 of our era, arrive at Tollantzinco, in the 
country of Anahuac, in 648, and at Tula in G70. 

Under the reign of the Toltec king Ixtilcuechahuac, in 708, the 
astrologer Huematzin composed the celebrated Divine Book, the Teo- 
amoxtll, which contained the history, the mythology, the calendar, and 
the laws of the nation. 

The Toltecs also appear to have constructed the pyramid of Cholula, 
on the model of the pyramids of Teotihuacan, which last are the most 
ancient of all ; and Siguenza believes them to be the work of the Ol- 
mecs. 

It was in the time of the Toltec monarchy, or in the ages anterior to 
it, that the Mexican Buddha, Quetzakuhuatl, appeared ; a white man, 
bearded, and accompanied by other strangers, who wore black gar- 
ments in the form of cassocks. Till the 16th century, the people wore 
these dresses to disguise themselves in festivals. The name of this 
saint was Cuculca, in Yucatan, and Camaxtli at Tlascala. His cloak 
was spotted with red crosses, High priest of Tula, he founded reli- 



144 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

gious congregations. He ordained sacrifices of flowers and fruit, 
and stopped his ears when he was spoken to of war. His fel- 
low-adventurer Huemac was in possession of the secular authority, 
while he himself enjoyed the spiritual power. This form of govern- 
ment was similar to those of Japan and of Cundinamarca ; but the first 
monks, Spanish missionaries, have gravely discussed the question whet- 
her Quetzalcohuatl was a Carthaginian, or an Irishman. From 
Cholula he sent colonies to Mixteca, Huaxayacac, Tabasco and Cam- 
peachy. It is supposed that the palace at Milta was built by order of 
this unknown personage. At the time of the arrival of the Spaniards, 
certain green stones which had belonged to him, were preserved as 
precious relics at Cholula ; and F. Torribio de Motilinia beheld sacri- 
fices offered in honour of the Saint on the summit of the Mountain 
Matlalcuyc, near Tlascala. 

The same monk was present at Cholula at ceremonies ordered by 
Quetzalcohuatl, in which the penitents sacrificed their tongue, ears, 
and lips. The high priest of Tula had made his first appearance at 
Panuco. He left Mexico with the intention of returning to Tlapallan, 
and it was in this journey that he disappeared, not in the north as 
might have been supposed, but in the east, on the banks of the Rio 
Huasacualco. The nation expected his return during a number of 
ages.* 

In 1051 pestilence and destruction of the Toltecs. 

They push their migration further to the South. 

Two children of the last king, and some Toltec families remain in 
the country of Anahuac. 

In 1170 the Chichemecs, issuing from their country Amaquemacan, 
arrive in Mexico. 

In 1178 migration of the Nahuatlacs (Anahuatlacs). This nation 
contained the seven tribes of Sochimilcs, Chalcs, Tepanecs, Acol- 
huans, Tlahuics, Tlascaltecs, or Tesochichimecs, and Aztecs, or Mexi- 
cans, who, as well as the Chichimecs, all spoke the Toltec language. 

These tribes called their country Aztlan, or Teo-Acolhuacan, and de- 
clared it to be near Amaquemacan. 

The Aztecs had migrated from Aztlan, according to Gama, in 1064 ; 
according to Clavigero, in 1160. The Mexicans, properly so called, se- 
parated themselves from the Tlascaltecs and the Chalcs in the 
mountains of Zacatecas. 

In 1087 the Aztecs arrive at Tlaxixco or Acahualtzinco ; reform of 
the Calendar, and first festival of the new fire since the going out from 
Aztlan in 1091. 

* The Druses, who became a distinct sect about the close of the tenth cen- 
tury, believe that Hakim, whose soul is in China, will come back in about 900 
years, so that he may be expected at any moment. See an article entitled 
" Syria, among the Druses," in Blackwood's, Sept. 1879. 



APPENDIX. 145 

Arrival of the Aztecs at Tula in 1196, at Tzompanco in 1216, and at 
Chapultepec in 1245. 

Under the reign of Nopaltzin, King of the Chichimecs, a Toltec 
called Xiuhtlato, lord of Quaultepec, taught the people, about the year 
1250, the culture of maize and cotton, and the making of bread from 
the flour of maize. The small number of Toltec families that dwelt 
along the banks of the Lake Tenochtitlan, had entirely neglected the 
culture of this grain, and the American corn would have been for 
ever lost if Xiuhtlato had not preserved a few seeds from his early 
youth. 

Union between the three nations of the Chichimecs, the Acolhuans 
and the Toltecs, by matrimonial alliances of members of the royal 
families of each. 

Few nations exist whose annals offer so great a number of names 
of families, and places, as the hieroglyphic annals of Anahuac. 

The Mexicans fall under the yoke of the Acolhuans in ] 314, but 
soon succeed in freeing themselves by their valour. 

Foundation of Tenochtitlan in 1325. 

List of Mexican Kings given, eleven in number, from Acamapitzin 
1352 down to Guatemozin 1521, when Cortes took the City of Tenoch- 
litlan." 

Abridged from a " fragment" written by Humboldt, and appear- 
ing in the " Vues des Cordilleres et monumens des peuples indigenes 
de l'Amerique." Vol. 2, p. 385. (Note wherever Humboldt is again 
referred to, this work is intended.) 

Humboldt, in the fragment I have partly quoted, alludes to the 
death during the reign of one of the Mexican kings, about the year 
1470, of Nezahualcoyotl, a King of Alcolhuacan, or Te/.cuco, " equally 
memorable for the improvement of his mind and the wisdom of his 
legislation." He speaks of his having composed, in the Aztec language, 
sixty hymns in honour of the Supreme Being ; an elegy on the destruc- 
tion of a city, and another on the instability of human greatness. He 
adds that the great botanist Hernandez had made use of several of the 
drawings of plants and animals, with which this king had ornamented 
his palace in Tezcuco, and which had been made by Aztec painters. 

The Acolhuans, it will be remembered, belonged to the same family 
with the Aztecs : they built their capital, Tezcuco, on the eastern end 
of the lake, opposite to that on which the Aztecs founded theirs, and 
were thereafter generally called Tezcncans. 

It was in the reign of this king that the remarkable league of unity 
was formed between the three powers of Tezcuco, Mexico and Tlacopan, 
another state bordering on the lake, which existed at the time of the 
Spanish invasion, and during his reign and that of his son and succes- 
sor, Nezahualpili, was what Prescott calls the " Golden Age of Tez- 
cuco." 

The Tepanecs invaded the territory of the Tezcucans in 1418, took 
K 



146 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

Tezcuco, killed the king, and subjugated his kingdom. Nezahual- 
coyotl, heir to the crown, and then fifteen years old, witnessed his 
father's death, while he lay concealed among the branches of a tree. 
His subsequent history, says Prescott, from whom I learn what I am 
about to say of him, is " as full of romantic daring, and perilous 
escapes, as that of the renowned Scanderbeg, or of the young Che- 
valier." 

Soon after his father's death he fell into the hands of the Tepanecs 
and was thrown into a dungeon . Effecting his escape, through the conni- 
vance of the governor of the fortress, an old servant of his family, 
who took the place of the royal fugitive, and paid for his loyalty with 
his life, he was at length permitted, through the intercession of the 
reigning family in Mexico, which was allied to him, to retire to their 
capital. Here he remained for eight years pursuing his studies under 
an old preceptor, who had had the care of his early youth. 

The Tepanec usurper dying, bequeathed the Empire to his son Max- 
tla, a man of fierce and suspicious temper. On his succession, Neza- 
hualcoyotl hastened to pay his obeisance to him, but the tyrant refused 
the little present of flowers laid at his feet, and turned his back on him 
in presence of his chieftains. Soon the prince's life became one of 
flight and hiding. Attempts were made by Maxtla to assassinate him. 
Whoever should take him dead or alive, was promised, however humble 
his degree, the hand of a noble lady and an ample domain. But the 
love borne him by his subjects, and indeed by some of the troops sent 
in search of him, was proof against all this. Soon the aggressive na- 
ture of Maxtla had caused alarm among the neighbouring states, who 
formed a coalition, and on an appointed day Nezahualcoyotl found 
himself at the head of a force sufficiently strong to put down the in- 
vaders. He entered the capital of his country and was received as its 
lawful king. 

Soon he united his forces with the Mexicans, and, after some bloody 
battles, the usurper, Maxtla, was completely routed. He fled to the 
baths, whence he was dragged out, and sacrificed with the usual 
cruel ceremonies of the Aztecs. 

The restored monarch remodelled the various departments of his 
government. 

He framed a code of laws so well suited to the exigencies of the times 
that it was adopted by the two other powers of the league, Mexico and 
Tlacopan. It was written in blood, and entitled the author, Prescott 
says, to be called the Draco rather than the " Solon of Anahuac," as 
he is fondly styled by his -admirers. 

He divided the government among a number of departments, the 
council of war, the council of finance, the council of justice. This last 
was supreme, both in civil and criminal matters, receiving appeals from 
the lower tribunals of the provinces, which were obliged every eighty 
days to make reports of their proceedings. 



APPENDIX. 147 

In all these bodies a certain number of citizens were allowed to have 
seats with the nobles and professionals. 

There was a council of state for aiding the king in the dispatch of 
business, and advising him in matters of importance, drawn altogether 
from the highest chiefs ; it was of fourteen members, and they had 
seats provided at the royal table. 

Lastly, there was the council of music, which, differing from the im- 
port of its name, was devoted to science and art. Works on anatomy, 
chronology, history, or any other science were submitted to its judg- 
ment before they could be made public. 

The wilful perversion of truth in history was made a capital offence ; 
and this body drawn from the best instructed persons had the super- 
vision of all the productions of art, and the nicer fabrics. It decided 
on the qualifications of the professors in the various branches of science, 
the fidelity of their instruction, the deficiency of which was severely 
punished, and it instituted examinations of these latter. In short it 
was a responsible board of education for the country. On stated days 
compositions and poems were recited before it by their authors. Seats 
were provided for the three crowned heads of the empire, who deli- 
berated with the other members on the merits of the pieces, and dis- 
tributed prizes to the successful competitors. 

Such are the marvellous accounts transmitted to us of this institu- 
tion — one calculated to give, says Prescott, a higher idea of the refine- 
ment of the people, than even the noble architectural remains which 
still exist. The archives, which were in the royal palace, were stored 
with the records of primitive ages. 

In one of Nezahualcoyotl's odes, he says : " Banish care, there are 
bounds to pleasure ; the saddest life must also have an end. Weave 
the chaplet of flowers, and sing thy songs and praise to the all-power- 
ful God ; for the glory of the world soon fadeth away. . . . Yet 
the remembrance of the just shall not pass from the nations, and the 
good thou hast done shall ever be held in honour. The goods of this 
life, its glories and its riches, are but lent to us ; its substance is but 
an illusory shadow, and the things of to-day shall change on the com- 
ing of the morrow." 

But the Tezcucan monarch, although a bard, did not pass all his 
hours in dalliance with the muse: he encouraged agriculture and war, 
and in early manhood practised the latter to the increase of the area, 
and the population of his country. He filled his capital and country with 
stately buildings for his nobles ; and erected in the former a magnificent 
pile of buildings that might serve both for a royal residence and for public 
offices, a mighty and magnificent palace, richly furnished with gorgeous 
tapestries and variegated f eather-work ; also, a lordly pile was erected 
for the Sovereigns of Mexico and Tlacopan. Solid materials of stone 
and stucco were employed in all, and they have furnished an inex- 
haustible quarry for the churches and other edifices since erected by 



148 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

the Spaniards on the site of the ancient city of Tezcuco. The time in 
building this latter palace is not given us, but two hundred thousand 
workmen, it is said, were employed on it. Nezahualcoyotl's favourite 
residence was at Tezcotzinco, a conical hill about two leagues from the 
capital. It was laid out in terraces or hanging gardens, having a flight 
of five hundred and twenty steps. The extraordinary accounts of 
Tezcucan architecture are confirmed by the relics which still cover this 
hill, or are half buried beneath its surface. The Tezcucan princes had 
but one lawful wife, though many concubines were allowed, and this 
great king remained unmarried to a late period. He was disappointed 
in an early attachment, as the princess who had been educated in 
privacy to be the partner of his throne gave her hand to another. The 
monarch submitted the affair to the proper tribunal ; the parties, how- 
ever, were proved to have been ignorant of the destination of the lady, 
and the court gave, and the monarch received, their sentence accord- 
ingly. The king diverted his chagrin by travelling. On one of his 
journeys he was entertained by the lord of Tepechpan, who, to do his 
sovereign more honour, caused him to be attended by a noble maiden, 
betrothed to himself. The king, who had all the amorous temperament 
of the South, conceived a violent passion for the lady. He kept his 
own counsel, and at the expense of his honour, sent an order to the 
chief of Tepechpan to take command of an expedition against the Tlasca- 
lans. He instructed two Tezcucan chiefs to keep near the old lord, and 
bring him into the thick of the fight, where he might lose his life, 
which, he told them, had been forfeited by a great crime, but owing to 
his past services he was willing to conceal his disgrace. The veteran 
obeyed, but in the farewell entertainment to his friends, suspecting the 
cause, he uttered a presentiment of his destiny, which was soon verified. 
The king did not think it prudent to break his passion so soon after 
the death of his victim, but he opened a correspondence with the prin- 
cess through a female relative. 

The lady was ignorant of the plot against her former fiance's life 
and soon yielded to the supplications of her royal kinsman. It was 
arranged by him that she should appear as if for the first time, in his 
grounds at Tezcotzinco. The king, who was standing in a balcony of 
the palace, enquired who the lovely young creature was : this was fol- 
lowed by a public declaration of his passion, and they were soon married 
with great pomp, in the presence of the court and his brother monarchs. 

This story, so obvious a counterpart of David and Uriah, is told, 
Prescott says, with great circumstantiality, both by the king's son and 
grandson, from whose narrative, the king's historian, Ixtilxochitl, de- 
rived it, They stigmatized the action as the basest of their great an- 
cestor's life. He did not agree with his countrymen in the sanguinary 
rites borrowed by them from the Aztecs, but endeavoured to recall his 
people to the more pure and simple worship of the ancient Toltecs ; 
but he had been married some years to his wife whom he had so un- 



APPEXDIX. 149 

righteously obtained, and had no issue by her. The priests said this 
was owing to the neglect of the gods of his country, and the only 
remedy was to propitiate them by human sacrifice. He gave his re- 
luctant consent, and once more the altars smoked with the blood of 
slaughtered captives. But it was all in vain, and he exclaimed, 
f< These idols of wood and stone can neither see nor feel, much less 
could they make the heavens and the earth, and man, the lord of it. 
These must be the work of the all-powerful unknown God, Creator of 
the universe, on whom alone I must rely for consolation and support." 

He withdrew to Tezcotzinco, greatly strengthened in his former re- 
ligions convictions, and openly professing his faith. To win his sub- 
jects from their degrading superstitions, he built a temple in the pyra- 
midal form, on the summit a tower nine stories high, dedicated to the 
unknown Qod, the Cause of causes. It seems probable, from the em- 
blem on the tower as well as from the complexion of his verses, that 
he mingled with his reverence for the Supreme the astral worship, 
which existed among the Toltecs. No image was allowed in the edi- 
fice, as unsuited to the " invisible God," and the people were prohi- 
bited from using any other sacrifice than thai of the perfume of flowers 
and sweet scented gums. His days were chiefly spent now in the 
solitudes of Tezcotzinco, where he devoted himself to astronomical and, 
perhaps, astrological studies and meditations on his immortal destiny, 
and to hymns, of which the following are translations of translations : 

" All the round world is but a sepulchre, and there is nothing which 
lives on its surface that shall not be hidden and entombed beneath it ; 
rivers, torrents and streams move onward to their destination, not one 
flows back to its present source ; they rush onward, hastening to bury 
themselves in the deep bosom of the ocean. The things of yesterday 
are no more to-day, and the things of to-day shall cease, perhaps, on 
the morrow. . . . But these glories have all passed away like the 
fearful smoke that issues from the throat of Popocatepetl. . . . The 
great, the wise, the valiant, the beautiful, alas ! where are they now ? 
They are all mingled with the clod ; and that which has befallen them 
shall happen to us, and to those that come after us. . . . Them let 
us aspire to thai heaven where aU is eternal, ami corruption cannot come." 
He died in the forty-third year of his reign, and the seventy-second of 
his age, after fitting counsel to his children and friends. lt He was 
wise, valiant, liberal, and when we consider the magnanimity of his 
soul, the grandeur and success of his enterprise, his deep policy as well 
as his daring, we must admit him to have far surpassed every other 
prince and captain of this new world," says his kinsman the Tezcucan 
chronicler. 

I should like to follow the events in his son's life, but my space is 
too small. He died in 1515, at the age of fifty-two, happy, Prescott 
says, by his timely death that he escaped seeing the fulfilment of his 
own predictions in the ruin of his country and the extinction of the 



150 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

Indian dynasties forever. But it is clear that Montezuma, king of 
Mexico, by his craftiness, plundered his brother monarch of some of 
his most valuable domains. 

If I have taken up too much space in describing what Nezahual- 
coyotl, the king, legislator and poet of Tezcuco, did, it has been to give 
the reader an adequate idea of the kind of civilization the Spaniards 
found in Anahuac, a civilization that was by all accounts inferior to 
that of the Toltecs, or, as they are sometimes called, the Nahuas, who 
were the first civilized and civilising natives of the country. 

The Spaniards, upon their advent, found a strong government exist- 
ing in Mexico, with life and property safe under it. 

At its head was Montezuma, the King of the Aztecs or Mexicans, 
or, as he and others probably after the league spoken of had been 
styled, their Emperor. 

The government was an elective monarchy, the sovereign being 
selected from the brothers of the deceased king, or in default of them, 
from his nephews, by four of the principal nobles chosen in the pre- 
ceding reign, to whom were added the royal allies of Tezcuco and 
Tlacopan. 

The Aztec dominion reached across the continent from the At- 
lantic to the Pacific. Its arms had been carried far over these limits 
into the farthest corner of Guatemala and Nicaragua. There were 
still in force the laws given by the Tezcucan king and adopted by 
the Aztecs ; the nobles and priests were the main supporters of 
the national interests ; the priests more indirectly, but their social 
influence was very great. There was great respect for morality ; 
the security for person and property was provided for. Adultery 
was punishable with death ; so was treason ; murder — even of a 
slave — was a capital crime. Drunkenness in youth was a capital 
offence, and in persons of maturer years it was punished with much 
severity ; but at the age of seventy it was tolerated. He who robbed 
in the market, or altered the measures, or removed the boundaries in 
the fields, was immediately put to death. The murder of a merchant 
or an ambassador, or any insult or injury to the latter, was considered 
a sufficient cause for war. The laws were represented by paintings, 
and the judges were attended by clever clerks or painters, who, by 
means of figures, described the suits of the parties concerned. 

These paintings, and the hieroglyphics used by the Mexicans, have 
long gone out of use and understanding. 

The government revenues were derived from Crown Lands set 
apart in the various provinces, a tax on agricultural products and a 
tribute on provisions and manufactured articles. 

There were in their army four grades of generals, and next be- 
low them were captains. The main bodies, or regiments were eight 
thousand men each, and were divided into battalions of four hundred 
men each, and these into squads of twenty. 



APPENDIX. 151 

The Mexican skill in the science of astronomy is shown by their 
knowledge of the true length of the year, of the cause of eclipses, of 
the periods of the solstices and equinoxes. 

They had public hospitals, and their physicians were skilful, but 
they mystified their cures with superstitious ceremonies. The mer- 
chants and military officers had a fair notion of geography ; maps and 
charts of the country, rivers and coasts were accurately drawn, or painted 
on cloth. Agriculture gardening and irrigation by means of canals 
were far advanced, Among their chief productions were maize, cot- 
Ton, cacao, the maguey, the chili, <kc. The maguey, then as now, fur- 
nished the necessaries of life, and pulque and mezcatl were made from 
its fermented juice. From the maize they prepared sugar, from the 
cacao they prepared chocolate which they formed into tablets. 

In mining and metallurgy they w r ere very expert. They exercised the 
arts of casting, engraving, chasing and carving in metal, with great 
skill ; and, in looms of simple construction, they made cotton cloth and 
other tissues, some of which were of exquisite fineness, interwoven 
with rabbit hair and feathers. With feathers on fine cotton webs they 
made garments of great magnificence. Earthenware of every descrip- 
tion was one of the great Mexican industries, many of the articles 
being painted in showy colours and designs. 

No beasts of burthen were used, all the carrying being dene either 
by water or on men's backs. Despatches were carried rapidly from 
bower to tower, erected at intervals of six miles along the highways, 
where couriers were in waiting for them. Thus they were carried 
nearly two hundred miles in a day if needed. The women shared 
equally with the men as well in social festivities as in labour, but they 
could not inherit. 

The Mexicans were simple in dress, but given to a great display of 
ornaments, and were courteous and polished in their manners and 
habits. They had no shops but barbers' shops in their towns and 
villages, all things being sold in the market, which, in their capital, 
was very large and well assorted. 

They had thirteen principal deities, though they recognised a Su- 
preme Creator and Lord of the Universe, whom they addressed in their 
prayers as " the invisible, incorporeal, one God of perfect perfection and 
purity." At the head was Huitzilopotchli, the Mexican Mars, the pa- 
tron deity of the nation. A far more interesting personage in their 
mythology was Quetzalcoatl, the god of the air, already spoken of. 
He was one of those benefactors of their species who have been deified 
by the gratitude of posterity. No further space can be allotted to 
their gods, who descended in regular gradation to the penates, av 
household gods, whose little images were to be found in the humblest 
dwelling. 

They contemplated three separate states of existence in the future : 
1. The wicked were to expiate their sins in a place of everlasting dark- 



152 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

ness ; 2. Those with no other merit than having died of certain dis- 
eases were to enjoy a negative existence ; 3. Those who fell in battle, 
or in sacrifice, passed at once into the highest place, into the presence 
of the Sun, whom they accompanied with songs and dances in his pro- 
gress through the heavens. 

On the death of a person his corpse was dressed in the peculiar 
habiliments of his tutelar deity, and strewed with pieces of paper to 
operate as charms against the dark road he was to travel. 

A number of slaves, if he were rich, were sacrificed at his obsequies. 
His body was burned, and the ashes, collected in a vase, were preserved 
in one of the apartments of his house. " Here we have," says Pres- 
cott, " successively the usages of the Roman Catholic, the Musselman, 
the Tartar, and the ancient Greek and Roman ; curious coincidences, 
which show how cautious we should be in adopting conclusions 
founded on analogy/' 

In the ceremony of naming their children the infant was sprinkled 
with water and " the Lord was implored to permit the holy drops to 
wash away the sin that was given to it before the foundation of the 
world, so that the child might be born anew." 

In more than one of their prayers they used regular forms, as, " Wilt 
thou blot us out, O Lord, for ever 1 " "Is this punishment intended, 
not for our reformation, but for our destruction ? " " Impart to us, out 
of thy great mercy, the gifts which we are not worthy to receive through 
our own merits." " Keep peace with all " says another petition. " Bear 
injuries with humility; God who sees, will avenge you." But the 
most striking parallel with Scripture that they had, is in the remark- 
able declaration that ' ' he who looks too curiously on a woman, commits 
adultery with his eyes." 

These elevated maxims were mixed up by them, with those of a puer- 
ile and even brutal character, arguing what was but the beginning of 
civilization. 

But the priests dazzled and influenced the ignorant people, not only 
by their formal and pompous ceremonial, but by their astrology and 
divination, in which they were well initiated, and, perhaps, impressed 
them more than was done by the priesthood of any other country, even 
that of ancient Egypt. 

That the sacerdotal order was numerous may be inferred from the 
fact that 5,000 priests were, in some way or other, attached to the 
principal temple of the capital. 

The best instructed of this numerous body took management of the 
choirs ; others arranged the festivals conformably to their calendar ; 
some superintended the education of youth ; others had charge of hier- 
oglyphical paintings, and oral traditions ; while the rites of sacrifice 
were reserved for the chief dignatries of the order. Two were at the 
head equal in dignity, and inferior only to the sovereign ; and the latter 
seldom decided any state matters of importance without their advice. 



APPENDIX. 153 

The priesthood had quarters within the precincts of their temples, 
and were allowed to marry. In their monastic residence they lived in 
stern conventual discipline, using flagellation and the thorns of the aloe 
to draw blood from their bodies. 

The great cities were made into divisions under the charge of the 
clergy, and so with the towns, villages and districts, who regulated all 
the religious matters appertaining to them, and administered, it is 
worthy of remark, the rites of confession and absolution, which, how- 
ever, were held to be of effect but once in a lifetime. 

One of the most important duties of the priesthood was that of the 
education of both sexes, to which certain buildings within the enclo- 
sure of the principal temple were appropriated. 

The girls were entrusted to the care of priestesses, the boys to the 
priests, and great attention was paid to the moral discipline of both 
sexes ; at a suitable age for marrying, the pupils were dismissed with 
much ceremony. 

To each of the principal temples, lands were annexed for the main- 
tenance of the priests who managed them for themselves, and their 
number and value all the country over had become very great. Besides 
the resources from these, the religious order was enriched with first 
fruits, and such other offerings as were dictated, the surplus being dis- 
tributed in alms. 

The Mexican teocalia were very numerous. There were several hun- 
dred in each of the cities, and the towns, villages and districts had 
their share, many of them doubtless but humble edifices. 

They were masses of earth cased with bricks or stone, about one 
hundred feet square, and in their form resembled the pyramids of 
Egypt, except that they were truncated. 

The ascent was by four or more stories, by a flight of steps turning at 
angles of the pyramid, so that circuits had to be made before reaching 
the top, or directly to it: the top was a broad area with one or two 
towers forty feet or more high, in which were the images of the presid- 
ing deities, the stone of sacrifice, the altars, and the inextinguishable 
sacred fire. There were said to be six hundred of these altars on smaller 
buildings in the inclosure of the grent temple of Mexico. 

Human sacrifices were made of the consenting victims, those of 
children purchased, slaves, and mostly of prisoners of war. 

They had established these sacrifices early in the fourteenth centurj\ 
Prescott says, at all events, they from thenceforth became general, 
latterly awfully frequent ; but Humboldt with his usual caution leaves 
it a question, whether in the antecedent period, they had not been 
abstemious only for want of victims, and when opportunity offered; 
whether they did not simply follows what was already in their minds, 
placed there by those from whom they descended. 

The teocali at Mexico has been shortly described at p. 67. It stood 
in the midst of a vast area, encompassed by a wall of stone and lime, 



154 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

about eight feet high, ornamented in relief by figures of serpents, a 
common emblem in Anahuac as well as Egypt. The wall was qua- 
drangular, pierced by huge battlemented gateways, opening on the four 
principal streets of the capital. Over each gate was a kind of arsenal, 
and there were barracks adjoining garrisoned by 10,000 soldiers, who 
were a sort of military police also. It was a pyramidal structure of 
earth and pebbles, and coated on the outside with the hewn stone of 
the country, and was in the usual form of the Aztec teocalis. Its circuit 
had a most imposing effect to the multitude in religious ceremonials. On 
the summit was an area paved with flat stones. The first object that met 
the view of Cortes, was the sacrificial stone already spoken of. At the 
other end of the area were two towers of three stories each, one of 
stone and stucco, the two upper of wood, elaborately carved. In the 
lower story stood the images of their gods ; the apartments above 
were occupied with utensils for their religious services, and the ashes 
of some of the Aztec princes. 

Before each sanctuary stood an altar with undying fire upon it. Be- 
low were many towers and altars, and the city seemed, spread out like 
a map, and every place was alive with business and bustle. The area 
of the inclosure was far more than that of the present cathedral and 
plaza. It extended into the now streets, and contained edifices for the 
priestesses and priests, and their pupils, granaries and other buildings. 
It was of itself a city within a city, and, Cortes asserted, embraced a 
tract of ground large enough for five hundred houses. 

Such was the teocali of Mexico. It was built in the year 1486, 
Humboldt* says. How long it was in building is not said, probably 
many generations, but the Aztecs for many years used its site for their 
religious purposes. 

I cannot tell where "Tlapallan," that the Toltecs came from was : 
nor where " Aztlan or Teo-Acolhucan, near Amaquemacan," that the 
Aztec and other tribes came from was ; though there are many theories 
about each, no one knows. 

Yucatan now forming the States of Yucatan and Campeachy, part 
of Mexico, was with some of the adjacent districts of country, at the 
time of the arrival of the Spaniards, inhabited by the Mayas, a race of 
Indians. Some ethnologists say they are a distinct race ; others that 

* This is given by Humboldt as six years before the discovery of America. 
That was made 12th October, 1492, as everybody knows, and so I put the year 
in the text 1486. The disputed point where the discovery was made, was set at 
rest by my brother, the late. Rear- Admiral Becher, B.N. Assistant Hydro- 
graph er at the Admiralty, by his " Landfall of Columbus," published in 1856. 
He settled, from Columbus's log, that the landfall was Watling's Island, the 
true " Cuanahani," and San Salvador, Columbus described and named. This 
book was borrowed by Mr. Washington Irving, and was the means of my 
making his charming acquaintance. He told me how he had been led into the 
mistake in the landfall given in his " Life of Columbus." 



APPENDIX. 156- 

they are descended from the Toltecs ; the time of their arrival is not 
tixed. There are other theories, but all writers seem to agree in giving 
credit to the Toltecs for introducing civilisation into the peninsula. 
Diego deLanda, the first Bishop of Yucatan, thinks that Cuculan (the 
Mexican Quetzalcoatl), after much turbulence re-established order, 
and founded Mayapan (a name afterwards given to the whole peninsula), 
about the tenth century. 

From Chiapas came large tribes, the Tutuxin (also Toltecs), who 
aided the natives to overthrow the monarch of Mayapan, about the 
first half of the fifteenth century. The kingdom was then divided into 
forty or more seignories, all doing allegiance to the cacique of Mani, in 
Yucatan. Tutul Xiu was cacique at the time of the coming of the 
Spaniards. See an interesting account of him and his ambassadors : 2 
Stephens' Yucatan, p. 250. 

Large numbers too migrated to the district of Peten. The Mayas 
have a language of their own which they still preserve, and Landa wrote 
their history, which is at the Madrid Royal Academy of History, in 
manuscript. The French Abbe Brasseur de Bourbourg, who knows 
perhaps more than any living man of this ancient people, says <>f it : 
"The alphabet and signs explained by Landa have been to me a 
Rosetta Stone." The calendar of the Mayas is substantially the same 
as the Aztecs; Stephens says, vol. 2,120, that it shows a common origin 
and a similarity of worship and religious institutions between them. 
The hieroglyphics found at Chichen by Stephens, "beyond all ques- 
tion," he says, "bore the same type with those at Copan and Palen- 
rpie." Their religion as to human sacrifices was, I fear, carried to even 
greater excess than that of the Aztecs, and their system of priesthood 
was much the same. In 1502, Baldwin says, the Mayas were seen by 
Columbus, at an island ofi" the coast of Yucatan; they came in "a 
vessel of considerable size." 

The island of Cozumel, part of Yucatan, was discovered by Grijalva 
in 1518, following the track of Cordova, and Stephens thinks, with 
much reason, that, in 1841, he visited one of the ruined towers, con- 
taining a temple, that is noted in Grijalva's voyage, and that Bernal 
Diaz describes when Corte's visited the island a year after. 

The Spaniards subdued Yucatan, though it gave them some trouble, 
and caused them more loss of life than all the rest of Mexico ; and the 
inhabitants, like the Mexicans, soon became the slaves of the invaders. 

I hope I have said enough to give some idea of what the ancient 
people of Mexico were, on the advent of the Spaniards. Let the reader 
clothe and employ them according to his reading and imagination, and 
remember that the country was then, immensely more populous than 
now, was much more cultivated, and was well clothed with trees and 
shrubs where it is now barren. Also, that the ruins which have come 
to light existed when they arrived; that at all events many of them were 
then inhabited, and used by the natives ; and that the Spaniards did 



156 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

:all they could to dismantle them, and as a rule to prevent them being 
inhabited or used by the natives. 

Nearly all that are known stand by themselves, the houses of the 
native inhabitants having disappeared, and are imbedded in trees. 
In, upon and about them are growths of large forest trees ; and it has 
been matter of regret to me, that, in the instance of Copan and Palen- 
que, the explorers who cut down trees in and about the ruins, did not 
take the trouble to count the rings they bore. They would have given 
them an approximation, at all events, to the number of years they had 
T)een deserted by man. 

Not only does a tree tell its age by the number of rings, each indi- 
cating a year's growth, but it can be made to tell the date of marks 
upon it. 

Suppose a surveyors' line was made fifty years or so ago, evidenced 
by his making the usual blazes (striking off with the axe a strip of wood 
and bark from every few trees along his line), and that the trees are 
still standing. The wound is healed and there is a healthy bark over 
each blaze ; but a practised surveyor detects a slightly raised ridge in 
the bark, cuts down where it exists to the blackened surface the axe 
has left, fifty or more years before, and counting the rings that have 
grown between that and the bark, finds about the number of years 
since the blaze has been made. The field notes of the original sur- 
veyor, and other things concurring, this evidence is, in the Ontario 
Superior Courts, considered conclusive. 

I have been counsel in many cases where such evidence was offered ; 
in one case I remember the blazes were some 70 years old. No man 
can create this evidence, and nature and the trees are not to be contra- 
•dicted. 

But it is time to go to the ruins this paper is written about. 

TULA. 

The Toltecs arrived here in 670, the Aztecs in 1196, Humboldt 
states. It is situated about 30 miles from the City of Mexico, in the 
State of Hidalgo, on the banks of the river Tula or Montezuma, which 
joins the river Tampico, near its mouth in the Gulf of Mexico. 

Prescott (p. 4) says : " The Toltecs established their capital at Tula, 
north of the Mexican valley, and the remains of extensive buildings 
r were to be discovered there at the time of the conquest." 

THE PYRAMIDS OF SAN JUAN TEOTIHUACAN . 

These are referred to in letter No. 3. See pages 43 to 47 and notes. 

Humboldt speaks of them as " the most ancient of all ;" he adds that 
.^Siguenza believed them to be the work of the Olmecs, and that the 
Toltecs " appear to have constructed the pyramid of Cholula on their 
imodel. 



APPENDIX. 157 

The A.bbe Brasseur de Bourbourg, p. 64, states, " that the first 
human sacrifices of the Mexicans were offered here." 

THE PYRAMID OF CHOLULA. 

►See description ante, pages 100, 101 and note. 

I must add that the brick which most resisted my stick, was there 
called "burned ;" and that as will be seen, a heap, I remember calling 
my party's attention to as a "baby pyramid," was part of the original, 
cut off from it. 

Here is a photo as it is, from one by Messrs. Kilburn Brothers, and 
on the opposite page is a photo from a drawing of Humboldt's, as he 
saw its west side, about the year 1803. 

Upon the coming of the Aztecs, with the other six tribes mentioned 
to Mexico, they found the pyramids of Teotihuacan, this pyramid and 
that of Papantla, and they attributed the building of all to the Toltecs; 
but it is possible that they were constructed before even their arrival, 
that is before (548. " We are not to be surprised " says Humboldt, " that 
the history of the American people begins before the seventh century, 
and that that of the Toltecs is uncertain. A profound savant gives 
evidence to prove that the history of the north of Europe goes only 
back to the tenth century, when the plateau of Mexico offered a more 
advanced civilization than Denmark, Sweden and Russia." 

He says that in cutting the new road from Puebla to Mexico, on 
the side opposite Popocatapetl, and on the north side where the first 
tier or story is traversed by the road, a large portion of the pyramid is 
cut through and detached. This detached mass is one-eighth of the 
original, and he discovered that it was built of alternate layers of clay 
and brick, which latter are generally eight centimetres high by forty 
long. It appeared to him they were not baked, but merely dried in 
the sun ; but they may have been submitted to a slight firing, and it 
may be that the layers of clay are not in the interior of the pyramid, 
separating the bricks. It has four tiers of equal height, intended to 
face the cardinal points, but that, from the edges of the tiers not 
being very distinct, it was hard to recognize their original direction. 
The base, he said, was more extended than that of any like monument 
on the old continent. His measurements are, height 54 metres, each side 
of the base 439 metres. 

He says that Bernal Diaz, a soldier of Corte's army counted the steps 
of the teocalis ; in that of Mexico, he made 140 ; in that of Tezcuco, 
117 ; and in that of Cholula, 120. In cutting off the detached mass 
above mentioned, a square chamber was discovered, built of stone and 
sustained by beams of cypress. In it were two skeletons, some idols in 
basalt, and a great number of vases glazed and painted with art. These 
were not preserved, but Humboldt was assured that this chamber,, 
which was covered with brick and clay had no outlet. 



158 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

He noticed a disposition of the bricks tending to diminish the pres- 
sure of the roof : that very large bricks were placed horizontally, in 
such a manner that those above overlapped the under ones, and the 
result was a mass in grades or steps which supplied in a measure the 
Gothic arch. He mentions many traditions concerning this monument 
and the temple to Quetzalcoatl, found on it by the Spaniards, and the 
substitution of a small chapel by them on it, dedicated to our Lady of 
the Remedies. Among the traditions of the Indians, was one that the 
gods, jealous that this edifice would reach the clouds, threw fire from 
heaven upon it, and that the work was stopped, many workmen having 
perished. Afterwards it was dedicated to Quetzalcoatl. 

Humboldt was reminded strongly by these and other Mexican monu- 
ments of the Temple of Belus, as described by Herodotus, whose 
.measurement and description he gives. 

He also gives the relation of Diodorus, that the Babylonian temple 
•served as an observatory of the stars by the Chaldeans, " the rising 
and setting of which could be accurately discerned, on account of the 
great height of the building. " 

The Mexican priests also observed the position of the stars from the 
top of this and other teocalis, and announced to the people the hours 
of the night by blowing a horn. 

He adds, that these teocalis were built between the years 571 and 
1416, and that one cannot see without surprise, that these American 
edifices of which the form is almost identical with that of the oldest monu- 
ments on the shores of the Euphrates, belong to times so near our own. 

Since Humboldt wrote, much research and many excavations have 
been made in and about ancient Babylon. Layard in his " discoveries 
among the ruins of Ninevah and Babylon," p. 422, says : "The Birs 
Nimroud (the palace of Nimrod) of the Arabs, and ' the prison of 
Nebuchadnezzar ' of the Jews, are by old travellers believed to be the 
very ruins of the tower of Babel ; by some again supposed to represent 
the temple of Belus, the wonder of the ancient world ; and by others 
the site of Borsippa, a city celebrated as the high place of the Chaldean 
worship, is a vast heap of bricks, clay and broken pottery. It rises to 
the height of 198 feet, and has on its summit a compact mass of brick 
work 37 feet high by 28 broad. * * * It is pierced by square 
holes, apparently made to admit air through the compact structure." 

Sir Austin adds, at p. 4z6 — " Without, however, venturing to 
identify the Birs Nimroud with the ruins of this temple, it may be 
observed, that it is highly probable one uniform system of building 
was adopted in the East for sacred purposes, and that these ascending 
and receding platforms formed the general type of the Chaldean and 
Assyrian temples. A step may still be traced around the foot of the 
ruin, probably part of the basement or first platform, and the who]e is 
surmounted by the remains of a quadrangular enclosure ; it is in every 
irespect like those in the Desert to the West of Mosul." 



APPENDIX. 159 

A very recent traveller, Grattan Geary, in his book, " Through 
Asiatic Turkey," just published, says — "For several centuries, the 
Birs Nimroud enjoyed the reputation of being the remains of the 
Tower of Babel, but the modern archaeologists are inclined to believe 
that it was the famous temple of Belus, restored or enlarged hy 
Nebuchadnezzar, whose name is on many of the bricks of which it is 
built. * * * It looks like a natural hill, but it was built up 
stage by stage, there being eight in all, each of those above the first 
being smaller than that on which it rested." Then, speaking of the 
brickwork on the summit, he says — "Holes like unto pigeon-holes, 
go through it from side to side. What purpose they were intended to 
serve, no one can even guess." 

In the " American Cyclopedia" title "Babel," I find the following : 
"The general description given by Herodotus tallies so clearly with 
the mound of Birs Nimroud, as to render it probable that this is the 
remains of the temple of Belus. 

" The ruin presents the aspect of a large irregular mound, rising ab- 
ruptly from a wide desert plain with masses of vitrified matter lying 
around its base ; its interior is found, upon excavation, to be com- 
posed of a mass of bricks, partially vitrified by fire, shewing that it is 
the ruin of a structure into which combustible material largely 
entered." 

The monuments and mounds that Humboldt refers to, as existing on 
the shores of the Euphrates, are almost countless. 

PAPANTLA 

Is a village of the State of Vera Cruz, distant about GO miles north- 
east of Jalapa, and about 25 from Tuxpan. 

Tn a thick forest near this village rises the pyramid of Papantla, 
which Humboldt visited about 1803. It was discovered he says, about 
1773, by some Spanish huntsmen, and is described by him as a steeper 
teocali than any other of the kind, with six or perhaps seven stages or 
stories. The height of it he gives as nearly eighteen metres, while the 
length of the base is only twenty. This little edifice is built entirely 
of free stone of extraordinary size, beautifully and regularly cut, and 
three stair-cases lead to the summit. The exterior is adorned w r ith 
sculptures, hieroglyphics, and small niches are disposed with much 
symmetry ; these niches appear to have reference to the signs of the 
calendar of the Toltecs. There seems to be no later description of this 
monument published than Humboldt's, and it would well repay the 
explorer for a visit. 

XOCHICALCO. 

This is the last monument appearing in this paper that Humboldt 
visited in person. It is about fifteen miles from the Town of Cuerna- 



160 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

vaca, south of the City of Mexico, on the western slope of the Cordilleras. 
It rises, he says, on an isolated hill 117 metres high from the base, 
and is called Xochicalco, or the house of flowers. It is a mass of rock to 
which the hand of man has given a tolerably regular conical form, and 
is divided into five tiers or terraces, each of which is covered with 
masonry. The tiers have nearly twenty metres of perpendicular eleva- 
tion, receding towards the summit, like the Aztec pyramids. All the 
terraces incline towards the south-east, probably to facilitate the flow 
of rain-water which is very abundant in this region. 

The hill is surrounded by a rather deep and very large moat, so that 
the whole intrenchment is nearly four thousand metres in circum- 
ference. The summit of the hill presents an oblong platform, which 
from north to south is seventy-two metres broad, and from east to 
west eighty-six metres long. This platform is surrounded by a wall 
of free stone, the height of which exceeds two metres, and which was 
intended as a defence. In the centre of this spacious Place d'Armes 
are the remains of a pyramidal monument which had five tiers, the first 
of which only has been preserved. The proprietors of a neighbouring 
sugar mill, were barbarous enough to destroy the pyramid and carry 
off the stones to build their ovens. The Indians declare that the five 
tiers were still in existence in 1750, and according to the dimensions 
of the first, it may be supposed that the whole edifice was twenty metres 
high. The tiers are placed exactly according to the four cardinal 
points. The base is 20 M. # 7 long by 17 M. "4 wide. ISTo vestige of a 
staircase has been discovered — a very striking circumstance, as it is 
asserted that there was formerly on the top a stone seat covered with 
hieroglyphics. 

Travellers who have examined this work of the aborigines of Ame- 
rica could not sufficiently admire the polish and cut of the stones, 
which are all " parallelopipeds, " the care with which they are united 
without cement, and the execution of the carvings with which the 
tiers are adorned ; each figure occupies several stones at once, and 
the outline not being interrupted by the joints of the stones, it is sup- 
posed that the reliefs were sculptured after the edifice was built. 
Amongst the hieroglyphical ornaments are heads of crocodiles, which 
throw out water, and figures of men seated with crossed legs, like the 
Asiatics. 

The fosse surrounding the hill, the coating of the tiers, the great 
number of subterranean apartments cut in the rock on the north side, 
the wall which defends the approach to the platform, all concur to give 
to Xochicalco the character of a military monument. 

The great resemblance between it and the Aztec teocalis inclined 
Humboldt to the belief that it was nothing but a fortified temple. The 
pyramid or great temple of Tenochtitlan, also enclosed an arsenal, and 
served during the siege as a stronghold — sometimes to the Mexicans, 
and sometimes to the Spaniards. 



APPENDIX 161 

This monument is attributed to the Toltecs ; everything that is lost 
in obscurity is attributed to the people who are supposed to have pos- 
sessed the genius of civilization. Abridged from p. 129, vol. 1. 

MIZANTLA. 

A ruined city in the State of Yera Cruz, Mexico, thirty-five miles 
north-east of Jalapa. Its remauis comprise a pyramid, streets, ancient 
walls, &c, and see ante pages 131, and the letter of the United States 
Consul, at page 134 n. as to the other half of the Aztec Calendar stone 
discovered there by Senor M. Melgar, of the City of Vera Cruz. 

Baldwin says, p. 91, "It is known that important ruins exist in the 
forests of Papantla and Mizantla, which have never been described. 

MITLA 

Is a village of the State of Oxaca, 26 miles east from the City of Oxaca, 
and gives its name to the ruins. Humboldt says of them that originally 
there existed five separate buildings disposed with great regularity. A 
very large gate, of which there were still (his book from which I 
quote is published in 1816) some vestiges, led to a spacious court fifty 
metres square. Heaps of earth and remains of subterranean struc- 
tures indicated that four edifices surrounded this court ; and in the 
principal edifice, known as the palace, was distinguished, a terrace 
raised one or two metres above the level of the court and surrounding 
the wall, and a niche formed in the wall, a metre and a half above the 
level of the hall with pillars. This niche, which is broader than it is 
high, he says, no doubt enclosed an idol. 

The principal door of the hall was covered with a stone. 

An entrance of the inner court ; a well or opening of the tomb were 
distinguished, as also, a very broad staircase which led to an excava- 
tion in the form of a cros3, supported by columns. The two galleries 
intersecting at right angles, were each 27 metres long and 8 broad. 
The walls were covered with Grecques and Arabesques. 

There were also six columns intended to support the beams of savin 
wood that formed the ceiling, three of which were then in good pre- 
servation. The roof consisted of very large slabs, and the columns 
which indicated the infancy of art, were the only ones then found, and 
were without capitals. They were monoliths, and were 5 metres 
•8 high. There were a number of apartments, in the interior of 
which were paintings representing weapons, trophies and sacrifices. 
He speaks of the mosaic, which he says is composed of small square 
stones, which are placed with much skill by the side of each other 
on a mass of clay, which appears to fill up the inside of the wall, and 
notices that the different parts of the palace present very striking irre- 
gularities or want of symmetry. As to the Greek ornaments, he says 



162 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

they offer, no doubt, striking analogy with those of Lower Italy, but, 
as he has already observed, that analogies of this kind are very limited 
proof of ancient communications of nations. 

In the environs of Mitla are the remains of a great pyramid, and 
some other buildings resembling those he has described ; he adds, 
that Mitla is a contraction of the word Miguitlan, which means in the 
Mexican language — -place of desolation, place of woe. 

Baldwin says of them, p. 121, quoting M. Charnay, "that their 
beauty can be matched only by the monuments of Greece and Rome, in 
their best days." Speaking of one of the buildings, he adds : "It is 
a bewildering maze of courts and buildings, with facings ornamented 
with mosaics in relief, of the purest design ; but under its projections 
are found traces of paintings, wholly primitive in style, in which the 
right line is not even respected. These rude designs, associated with 
palaces so correct in architecture, and so ornamented with* panels of 
mosaic of such marvellous workmanship, put strange thoughts in the 
mind. Must we not suppose these palaces were occupied by a race less 
advanced in civilization than their first builders ? '." 

Baldwin further says that " Two miles or more away from the great 
edifices here mentioned towards the west, is the " Castle of Mitla." It 
was built on the summit of an isolated and precipitous wall of rock, 
which is accessible only on its east side. The whole levelled summit 
of this hill is enclosed by a solid wall of hewn stone twenty-one feet 
thick and eighteen high. This wall has salient and retiring, angles, with 
curtains interspersed. On its east side it is flanked by double walls. 
"Within the enclosure are the remains of several small buildings. The 
field of these ruins was very large three hundred years ago ; at that 
time it may have included this castle." — Ancient America, p. 122. 

The palace of Mitla was built by the Tzapotecs, anciently inhabiting 
Oxaca. Humboldt says, and according to traditions which he collects, 
the principal purpose of it, and the buildings close by, was to mark the 
spot where the ashes of their princes reposed. 

The Tzapotecs, as has been already observed, were among the most 
ancient nations of Mexico. 

And be it remembered here that whenever a metre is spoken of by Hum- 
boldt, he means, according to the Imperial Dictionary, thirty-nine 
inches and thirty-seven hundredths of an inch . 

PALENQUE 

Is a village in the State of Chiapas, Mexico, 100 miles E. N.E. of 
Ciudad Heal, and gives its name to the ruins, which are about seven 
miles distant from it. 

They were discovered in 1750 by some Spaniards in travelling, who 
said they covered from eighteen to twenty-four miles. 



APPENDIX. 163- 

In 1787, Captain Antonio del Rio was commissioned by the King of 
Spain to explore them : he complained of the thickness of the forest 
then. His report slept, so far as England and the United States are 
concerned, till 1822. 

While this report slept in the archives of Guatemala, Charles the 
4th, of Spain, commissioned Captain Dupaix to make further explora- 
tions. 

By various accidents, what Dupaix saw and did was not given to 
the public till 1825, when his work was published in Paris at 800 francs 
a copy ; Lord Kingborough's, so far as regards Palenque is a mere re- 
petition of Dupaix, was 8400 a copy. 

John Lloyd Stephens, the great American traveller and writer, born 
in Shrewsbury, New Jersey, in 1805, died in 1852, has done more than 
any man living or dead to explore and give to the public an idea of 
what these Central American ruins were, was at Palenque with Mr. 
Oatherwood as draughtsman, in 1840, and he wrote " Incidents of 
Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan," publishing it 
through Harper Brothers, in 1841. M. DeWaldeckhad, while Stephens 
was at Palenque, already passed more than two years there, and subse- 
quently with the French Abbe and historian, Brasseur de Bourbourg 
(well known in Lower Canada as the author of " Histoire du Canada," 
2 vols. Quebec, 1852), passed some time there. 

The result of their labours " Monuments anciens du Mexique, et 
autres mines de l'ancienne civilisation du Mexique," the designs by 
DeWaldeck, the text by Brasseur de Bourbourg, was published in Paris 
in 1866. 

This learned writer was much in Mexico, and has written much 
about it and the people of America as they were before Columbus's 
discovery of it. 

The ruins are in a large forest, and all the explorers had to cut down 
numbers of trees growing in and about the ruins, to enable them to 
see, or depict anything. 

The discoveries brought to light are as follows ; — 

A building, which is called, as other like large mined buildings are, 
the " palace," and stands with its face to the east. It is 228 feet in 
front, by 180 deep. The height 25 feet, with a projecting cornice, all 
of stone : the front contains fourteen doorways, about nine feet wide 
each, and the intersecting piers are between six and seven feet wide. On 
the left, as you approach, eight of the piers have fallen down, as has 
also the right-hand corner : the terrace underneath is cumbered with 
ruins. But six piers remain entire, and the rest of the front was, at 
the time of Stephens' visit, open. 

The front view of this building shews it was surmounted with a 
tower, whose base was thirty feet square ; it had three stories, and was 
conspicuous by its height and proportions. 

Within this tower was found another, distinct from the outer one. 



164 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

The interior of the palace is taken up with courts, corridors, and 
chambers, with ranges of steps and grand staircases, court-yards with 
grim gigantic figures, nine or more feet high, carved in stone, in has 
relief, a plan of which, Stephens gives and which are well worthy of 
such an enormous building. 

The tower and palace are substantially built of stone, with a mortar 
of lime and sand, and the whole front was covered with stucco and 
painted. 

The piers were ornamented with spirited has reliefs, and there were 
hieroglyphics and richly ornamented borders on them, the colours 
found on them being red, blue, and yellow. 

The palace stands on an elevation of an oblong form, 40 feet high, 
310 feet in front and rear, and 200 feet on each side. This was faced 
with stone, and was probably in steps ; but the stones have been thrown 
down by the growth of trees, and its form was then, when Stephens 
visited it, hardly distinguishable. Brasseur de Bourbourg gives the 
height of the pyramid on which the palace stands, as sixty feet, how- 
ever. At the south-west corner of the palace is a ruined pyramidal 
structure, on the truncated top of which is, what Mr. Stephens 
gives as No. 1, of what the Indians call the " casas, or houses of Pie- 
dra." It is 76 feet in front and 25 feet deep. It had, he says, five 
doors and six piers all standing, and all the front was richly ornamented 
in stucco, and covered with hieroglyphics, four of the piers having hu- 
man figures in has relief in stucco. 

The interior of this building is divided into two corridors, with its 
ceiling, like that of the palace, nearly a point, from the peculiar form 
of arch of the building ; something like an isosceles triangle with its 
upper angle cut off by the finish given, of a stone across its top. 

In the corridor are three tablets of hieroglyphics well preserved, 
which Stephens says, are the same in character that were found by 
him at Copan and Quirigua. 

Stephens was the first to give them to the public, and he says that 
both Captains Del Rio and Dupaix refer to them, but in few words, 
and neither gives any drawing of them. 

He adds there was no staircase or means of communication between 
the tower and upper part of this building. 

In front of it, at the foot of the pyramidal structure, was a small 
stream, and the remains of an old stone aqueduct, from which it was 
supplied. Crossing this stream he found a broken stone terrace about 
60 feet on the slope, with a level esplanade at the top 110 feet broad, 
from which rose another pyramidal structure, ruined, and overgrown 
with trees, 134 feet high, on the slope, and at its summit is what he 
calls No. 2 casa, 30 feet front, 31 feet deep, and having three door- 
ways. The whole front was covered with stuccoed ornaments, and the 
two outer piers contained hieroglyphics. 

In the interior, were two corridors and ceilings as before, and the 



APPENDIX. 165 

pavement of large square stones. The back corridor is divided into 
three apartments, with heavy mouldings of stucco and cornice ; on each 
side of the doorway there had been a sculptured stone ; and within is 
a chamber where there is no admission of light except from the door ; 
on its back wall, was the tablet, two-thirds of which are given in his 
engraving. I' waa then 1" feet 8 inches ride, 6 feet 4 inches in height, 
and consisted of three Beparate atones. 

That on the left, facing the spectator is still in its place : the middle 
one had been removed and waa carried down the stream ; it waa there 
copied, ami is given in its original position in the wall. The st<>iie on 
the right is broken and gone, hut probably contains, like the one "li 

the left , hieroglyphics. 

This is the famous t<iU>f of the crou, and the principal subject is the 
cross. It is surmounted bj a strange bird, and there are two human 
figures righl and left of it, who are evidently important person 

their costume LB in a style thai seems new. and is of a Soft and pliable 

texture. 

Both are looking towards the cr.>ss. and .me seems in 'he act of 
making an offering to it, perhaps of a child. 

There are hieroglyphics about it, which doubtless explain all 

Stephens says, and reminded him of the Egyptian mode <.f recording 
the name, history, &c, "f the persons represented. 

(hi account of this CTOS8, lhipaix and his o .miiieiitat. .rs assumed for 

this building a \<r\ remote antiquity, in a period at all events ai 
dent to the Christian era ; accounting for the appearance of the 
by the argument that it was known, ami had a symbolical meaning 
among ancient nations. Long before it became the emblem of the Chris- 
tian faith. 

Prom the font of the elevation in which stands the last building, 

their liases almost touching, rises another pyramidal structure like the 

last, in which was the house he called case Ho. 3, which n 

feet in front by 28 feel deep, It was ornamented in stuooo, and had 

piers and an interior Something like the last, in which as iii this he 

found an enclosed chamber, both of which he called adoratorii 
altars. 

Within this Cass No, '■'< the chamber was four feet seven inches deep 
and nine feet wide, and set in the lack of its w ill was a stone tablet 
nine feet long by eight fe. t high, a copy of which he gives. like the 
< ther with the cn>ss it is composed of three separate Btones ; the sculp- 
ture was perfect ; the tw o human figures are the Bame as those represented 
in the tablet of the cross. Both si and on the backs of huim'U beings, one 
of whom supports himself by his hands and knees, the other seeming 
crushed by the weight. In the centre is r mask which Stephens 
thought afterwards was similar or had a likeness to the one Hum- 
boldt shewed in his book of the A/tec Stone : and this was one of the 
reasons for the conclusion he came to about the people who built these 



166 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

monuments. The piers on each side of the doorway to this tablet, con- 
tained each a stone tablet with figures carved in bas relief, which he 
gives in his book at p. 353, and there is also a drawing of the chamber 
in casa No. 3, which I have partly described from him. 

He says of this, " We could not but regard it as a holy place, dedi- 
cated to the gods, and consecrated by the religious observances of a 
lost and unknown people. To us it was all a mystery ; silent, defying 
the most scrutinizing gaze, and reach of intellect." 

Near to this on the top of another pyramidal structure, was another 
. building, but so ruined and shattered, apparently by an earthquake, 
that it was impossible even to make out the ground plan. 

Then returning to the Casa No. 1, and proceeding south about 1500 
feet, on another pyramidal structure, was another building, marked in his 
plan No. 4, which was 20 feet front and 18 feet deep, but very ruinous 
in condition. Fronting the door and against the back wall of the in- 
ner corridor, was a large stucco ornament representing a figure sitting 
on a couch, but a great part had been taken off and carried away. 
The body of the couch, with tiger's feet, is all that there remained. 
The outline of two tigers' heads and of the sitting personage, was seen 
in the wall. 

It seems to have been superior in execution to any other stucco re- 
lief in Palenque. The body of the couch he says was entire, and the 
leg and foot hanging down the side are " elegant specimens of art and 
models for study." M. De Waldeck makes his plate 42 of this, re- 
stored. 

There were no doors, or remains of any, of any kind. Within, on 
each side, were three niches in the wall, eight or ten inches square, 
with a cylindrical stone about two inches in diameter fixed upright, by 
which, perhaps, a door was secured. 

Along the cornice outside, about a foot from the front, holes were 
drilled, at intervals, through the stone ; and his impression was, that 
an immense cotton cloth was raised and lowered by their means. Such 
a custom, he says, was, at the time he wrote, used in front of the 
piazzas of some haciendas in Yucatan. 

There were no beams or lintels found over the doors, or rather door- 
ways, of any kind or description, and the stone above on each was 
broken somewhat. Stephens inferred, the lintels had been of wood, 
which had decayed and disappeared. 

The separating walls of the palace, like many other of the walls of 
buildings he describes, had apertures of about a foot, he thought 
for ventilation. Some of them were of the forms which have 
been called the Greek Cross and the Egyptian Tau, he adds ; and 
made the subject of much learned speculation. Such is the sub- 
stance of what Stephens says he found. He adds that, considering 
the space occupied by the ruins, and supposing the houses of the in- 
habitants, like those of the Egyptians and the present race of Indians, 




THE TOWER OF THE PALACE, PALENQUE. 
(From a drawing faj M. Be Waldeck.) 



APPENDIX. 167 

were of frail and perishable materials, and, as at Memphis and Thebes, 
to have disappeared altogether, the city may have covered an immense 
extent ; and thus he concludes : 

" Here were the remains of a cultivated, polished, and peculiar peo- 
ple. * * We lived in the ruined palaces of their kings, we went up 
to their desolate temples and fallen altars ; and wherever we moved 
we saw the evidences of their taste, their skill in arts, their wealth and 
pains. We fancied every building perfect, with its terraces and pyra- 
mids, its sculptured and painted ornaments, grand, lofty and imposing, 
&c." 

Except in the height of the pyramid, on which stands the palace, the 
two explorers agree substantially enough for this paper. Each gives an 
engraving of a bas relief in stucco, on the west side of the palace — it is 
No. 2 in plate ] 3 of Brasseur de Bourbourg's book, and he makes men- 
tion of it ; I think the other does not, and it is found much inferior to 
the other, at the back of p. 317 of his book. 

Both these engravings show as part of the headdress of the stand- 
ing figure in the bas relief, an elephant's head and trunk. 

Where did the builders get this ? 

Brasseur de Bourbourg thinks the architecture of the tower admir- 
able, and that one man only was intended to defend it. 

I copy here his plate of the tower, or rather M. De Waldeck's, 
which shows some of the bas reliefs in the piers, and roots of trees going 
downwards, outside the tower in search of nourishment. 

From each of the buildings Stephens found, none of the others were 
to be seen ; and without a guide they might have gone within a hundred 
feet of them, he says, so thick was the forest. 

Captain Caddy, R.A. , who Stephens mentions was there shortly be- 
fore him, told me that in walking about Palenque, for miles it seemed 
to him, he was treading on the debris of old stone buildings. 

But the space examined by the explorer has been but small. Ste- 
phens says, once only he attempted an exploration. 

From the door of the palace, almost in a line with its front, rose a 
high, steep mountain, which he thought must command a view of the 
ruins, and, perhaps, itself contain ruins. 

He took its bearing, and, with compass in hand and an Indian be- 
fore him with his machete, cut a straight line E.N.E. to its top. It 
was so steep he had to haul himself up by branches, and on the top 
was a high mound of stones, with a foundation wall, still remaining. 
Trees were growing out of the top, up one of which he climbed, but 
could not see the palace or any of the buildings. Behind, nothing was 
to be seen but forest ; in front, only a wooded plain extending to 
Tobasco and the Gulf of Mexico. 

At ten leagues distance is the village of Las Tres Cruces, or the 
Three Crosses, which Corte's erected there in his march from the City 
of Mexico to Honduras. 



168 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

Mr. Stephens supposes Palenque was then desolate and in ruins, or 
Cortes would have turned aside to subdue and plunder it ; Brasseur 
de Bourbourg, on the contrary, thinks it was a prosperous place at the 
time of the Spanish Conquest, whatever name it then bore. See p. 82. 

OCOSINGO 

Is a town in the State of Chiapas, Mexico, sixty-five miles south-east 
of Ciudad Real. 

Captain Dupaix was here in 1807 ; but whether he says anything 
about the ruins I do not know. They are about eight miles from the 
town, and were visited by Mr. Stephens, in 1840. 

He found a high structure, probably a fortress, he says, rising in a 
pyramidal form, with fine spacious terraces, which had all been faced 
with stone, but were broken and overgrown. On the top was a pyra- 
midal structure, overgrown with trees, supporting a building. This 
was fifty feet in front, thirty-five feet in depth, well built of stone and 
lime, and was once covered with stucco, part of which and the cornice 
remained. 

The entrance was by a doorway ten feet wide, which led into an 
ante-chamber leading into another chamber, ten feet square. The roof 
was of stone, lapped over in the usual style of the arch, as made by the 
architects of the new world. There were several chambers, but it was 
much ruined and choked with debris when he wrote. Over the main 
door was an ornament of stucco, which at first impressed him by its 
striking resemblance to the winged globe, over the doors of Egyptian 
temples. It was much broken, but the part that remained in its place 
is represented in his engraving at p. 259, and differs in detail from the 
winged globe. The wings were reversed, there was a fragment of cir- 
cular ornament which may have been intended for a globe, but there 
were no remains of serpents entwining on it. Over this, the door lintel 
was a beam of icood, quite sound ; and both he and Mr. Catherwood were 
satisfied it had been trimmed with an instrument of metal. 

There was a subterranean apartment with curious stucco ornaments. 
They saw another edifice on a still higher structure, and then two 
others, each on pyramidal elevations ; but all were much ruined. 
They then came out on the table-land, the probable site of the old city 
which was protected on all sides by the same high terraces. These 
ruins were but hurriedly visited by Stephens. He is inclined to think, 
as Brasseur de Bourbourg does, that they were those of an inhabited 
city, at the time of the conquest by the Spaniards. 

UXMAL. 

The ruins take their name, like most of the others, from an adjoining 
hacienda, that of Uxmal. They are in the peninsula of Yucatan, in the 



APPENDIX. 169 

State of Campeachy, Mexico, and are distant from Merida, the chief 
city of Yucatan, which contains more than 30,000 inhabitants, and 
is about 20 miles from Progresso, and the same distance from Sisal,, 
its ports, sixty-nine miles. 

Stephens, of whom I have already spoken, was at these ruins in 1840, 
and again in the latter part of 1841. His book is principally quoted 
from.* 

On his first visit the ground in and about these ruins had been cleared : 
but on the second the growth of underbrush and cane was ten and 
more feet high, which he had to remove to inspect and measure and 
get sketched these buildings as he has done. 

The buildings are in a very large space, and no doubt, with the debris 
found, mark the site of a large ancient city. They are the house or 
palace of the governor, the house of the dwarf, the house <>r palace of 
the nuns, the house of the old woman, the house of the tortoises, and 
the house of the pigeons, all built of stone on platforms and elevations y 
and there are mounds and elevations having no name, and boundary 
walls in a more or less state of ruin ; and here let me add, that the 
names given to these buildings are modern and arbitrary, and such as 
they are known by among all the people belonging to the hacienda. 
The buildings are very imposing in appearance in their present con- 
dition, and the following are Stephens' measurements and description. 

THE HOUSE OR PALACE OF THE GOVERNOR, UXMAL, 

Stands on three great terraces ; the front is towards the east and 322 
feet ; the ends are 30 feet wide ; in what he calls the centre doorway 
is a very large and elaborate sculptured ornament of stone. Up to the 
cornice and on all four of its sides the facade presents a smooth surface, 
and above is one solid mass of rich complicated and elaborately sculp- 
tured ornaments, forming a sort of arabesque. Each of these ornaments 
is made up of separate stones, each of which had carved on it part of 
the subject, and was then set in its place in the wall. It may be called 
a sort of sculptured mosaic ; and he has no doubt that each stone is 
part of a history, allegory, or fable. The roof is flat and had been 
covered with cement ; and the rear was a solid wall without openings 
nine feet in thickness. Like the front, it was ornamented with sculp- 
tured stone. It has eleven doorways in front, and one at each end ; the 
doors were all gone, and what had been wooden lintels over them had 
fallen ; but in other buildings many of the wooden lintels were left. 

The interior was divided longitudinally by a wall into two corridors, 
and these again into oblong rooms, by cross partitions. Every pair of 
these rooms communicated by a doorway opposite that in front. The 
principal apartments in the centre were sixty feet long and twenty- 

* Stephens' " Incidents of Travels in Yucatan." Harper & Bros. : New York. 



170 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

three feet high to the top of the arch. The walls were of square, smooth 
blocks of stone, and the floors were of cement, in some places broken 
and crumbling. The ceiling was a triangular arch, as at Palenque, 
without the key-stone. The support is made by stones overlapping 
and presenting a smooth surface to within about a foot of the point 
of meeting, and there covered by a layer of flat stones. Here and 
there, were two conspicuous marks, which were found afterwards in 
all the ruined buildings of the country. They were the prints of a 
red hand, with the thumb and fingers extended. He who had made 
it had pressed his hand moistened with red paint against the stone. 

The three terraces, on top of which is the palace of the governor, at 
Uxmal, are hardly less imposing than itself. The lowest is 3 feet 
high, 15 feet broad, and 575 feet long ; the second 20 feet high, 250 
feet wide, and 540 feet long ; and the third, on which the building 
stands, is 19 feet high, 30 feet broad, and 360 feet in front. They 
were all supported by substantial stone walls ; that of the second was 
in a good state of preservation ; all the corners of these platforms were 
rounded, instead of presenting sharp angles. Stephens speaks of an 
oblong structure along the south end on the second platform, about 3 feet 
high, 200 feet long, and 15 feet wide ; at the foot of which there is a 
range of pedestals, and fragments of columns, and of large rudely 
sculptured stone, carved with two heads, buried. This was done, he 
suggests, by the Spaniards, when they drove out the inhabitants and 
depopulated the city, following their example at Cholula, and elsewhere, 
in throwing down and burying idols. 

On the second great platform, a grand staircase, 130 feet broad, 
which once contained thirty-five steps, rises and leads to the third 
platform, on which the building stands. Beside this staircase there is 
nothing leading to it ; and the only other approach to the second plat- 
form is by an inclined plane 100 feet broad, at the south end of the 
building. 

One of the photographs, mentioned at p. 132 ante, is of this palace of 
the governor, and is copied herewith made very small, requiring 
the use of a magnifying- glass to see its mosaic work. 

A NAMELESS MOUND, UXMAL. 

On a line with the back of the palace of the governor, is a very 
high, large, but nameless mound, its sides encased with stone, and in 
many parts richly ornamented. It is 65 feet high, and 300 feet wide 
on one of its bases, 200 on the other. On the top was a platform of 
stone, 75 feet square, with a border of sculptured stone. 

THE HOUSE OF THE DWARF, UXMAL. 

The court-yard of this building is 135 feet by 85, and is bounded by 
ranges of mounds from 25 to 30 feet thick, covered with a rank growth 






5 







APPENDIX. 171 

of herbage, but which, perhaps, formed ranges of buildings. The py- 
ramid and elevation on which the House of the Dwarf stands, is very 
steep, of stone, and in parts much ruined. It is 235 feet long, by 155 
wide ; its height 85 feet ; its ends are rounded ; and from the ground 
to the top of the building is 105 feet. At the height of 60 feet from 
the ground is a projecting platform, on which is a building loaded with 
ornaments. 

No communication with this-building remained, but Stephens thought 
he detected the ruins of a triangular arch, which supported a grand 
staircase, once leading to the door of this building. 

The crowning structure, the House of the Dwarf, is a long narrow 
building 72 feet by 12, and is much ruined ; but is tastefully decor- 
ated, more so, Stephens thought, than the others. The interior is 
divided into three apartments ; that in the centre being 24 feet by 7, 
and those on each side 19 by 7. 

A narrow platform, 5 feet wide, projects from the four sides of this 
building ; and to its eastern front ascends a grand staircase 102 feet 
high, 70 feet wide, and containing 90 steps. 

THE HOUSE, OR PALACE OF THE NUNS, UXMAL, 

Is a quadrangular building, with a court-yard in the centre, standing 
on the last of three terraces, nineteen feet high. The front of this 
building is 79 feet, and above the cornice, from one end to the other, 
it is ornamented with sculpture. In the centre is a large gateway, 
spanned by the triangular arch, and leading to the courtyard ; and on 
each side of the gateway are four doorways opening to apartments, 
averaging 24 feet long, 10 wide, and 17 feet high to the top of the arch. 
The building forming the right side of this quadrangle is 158 feet long ; 
that on the left 173 feet ; and at the end, or range opposite the front it 
measures 264 feet. These three ranges are all dead walls on the exte- 
terior, and above, the cornice is all ornamented with the same rich 
sculpture. 

Passing through the gateway, a court-yard is entered, with four great 
facades locking down upon it, each ornamented from one end to the 
other with rich and intricate carving, surpassing all that is to be seen 
among these ruins. This yard is 214 by 258 feet. 

One of the ornaments here is the figure of a human being much muti- 
lated ; and the bodies of the many serpents represented in the sculp- 
ture are covered with feathers. 

At the end of this court-yard, fronting the entrance-gate, appears a 
lofty building, 264 feet long, on a terrace 20 feet high. The ascent is 
by a grand but ruined staircase, 95 feet wide ; and on each side is a 
building with a sculptured front and having doorways leading to ap- 
partments. Within all is crowded with elaborate sculpture. 

The building is erected over, and completely incloses, a smaller one of 



172 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

older date but much like it. As to the sculpture facing this court-yard t 
on the House of the Nuns, it would be difficult to have more variety 
and, at the same time, more harmony of ornament. The apartments 
opening upon this yard were 88 in number. 

One of the photographs mentioned at page 132 is of about one- 
fourth of the front of this Palace of the Nuns, and is copied and here- 
with, made very small, requiring the use of a magnifying glass to see its 
mosaic work. 

THE HOUSE OF THE OLD WOMAN, UXMAL, 

Is much ruined. It is about 500 feet from the Palace of the Gover- 
nor, and takes its name from a mutilated statue of an old woman lying 
before it. It is only remarkable as one of these ancient structures. 

THE HOUSE OF TORTOISES, UXMAL, 

Is so called from a bead, or row, of tortoises in stone which goes round 
its cornice, is 94 feet in front and 34 feet deep. It stands alone, and 
wants the rich and gorgeous decorations of the palace of the governor, 
on the second terrace or elevation of which it is built. It is of remark- 
able beauty in its proportions, and the chasteness of its ornaments. 
Although standing on the second platform of the palace of the gover- 
nor it has no visible communication with it, and will soon be a mass 
of ruins. 

THE HOUSE OF THE PIGEONS, UXMAL, 

Is 240 feet long ; and along the centre of the roof, running longitu- 
dinally, is a range of structures built in a pyramidal form nine in num- 
ber, about 3 feet thick, with small oblong openings through them, 
which give them, somewhat, the appearance of pigeon houses ; hence 
the name. All have been covered with ornaments, some of which still 
remain. It has an arch-way and a court-yard ; *at the end of this is a 
range of ruined buildings, with another arch-way in the centre. Pass- 
ing through this archway another large court-yard is reached, on 
either side of which is a range of ruined buildings ; and at the farther 
end is a great teocali. A broad stair-case leads to the top of this, on 
which stands a long narrow building, 100 feet by 20, divided into three 
apartments ; all is much ruined . 

This is a brief account of what Stephens saw of the ruins of Uxmal ; 
but he also saw the title deeds of the lands upon which they stand. 

The first is from the Spanish Government, dated 12th May, 1673 ; 
the second a deed of confirmation of this, on which it was certified that 
livery of seizin under it was made by opening and shutting some doors 
of these buildings &c, in January 1688. The former deed recited the 
petition of the grantee for it, " because it would prevent the Indians 



to 

Kg 

8 



s 




APPENDIX. 173 

from worshipping the devil in the ancient buildings there, having in them 
their idols, to ivhich they burn copal, and performing other detestable sa- 
<yHAces i <£c." Any doubt as to what these high buildings on pyramidal 
elevations were used for, is set at rest by the Padre Cogolludo, a Fran- 
ciscan friar, and historian of Yucatan, whom Stephens mentions, at all 
events, as to one of the buildings here, the House of the Dwarf. 
Cogolludo says that ' ' there were the idols, and that there the inhabi- 
tants made sacrifices of men, women and children." Of these sacrifices 
he gives a frightful description, much the same as that at page 58 ante, 
and he adds to it the account of them by one, who had been one of their 
priests, but was converted. 

So there was no doubt left, but that these ruins were inhabited, and 
used at the time of the Spaniards coming. 

CHICHEN-ITZA. 

These ruins are all of stone, on the site of an ancient city, and are in 
the State of Yucatan, Mexico, about thirty miles westerly from Valla- 
dolid, near the line of railway from Meridato that place, probably now 
completed. 

They are on a hacienda called by the same name, and were visited 
and described by Stephens, in 1842. He says the buildings are large, 
some in good preservation, the facades, not so elaborately ornamented 
as some he had seen, seemed of an older date and the sculpture is 
ruder, but the interior apartments contained decorations and devices 
new to him. What is standing is principally : 

1. a building 149 feet in front, 48 feet deep, with a grand staircase 
45 feet wide in the centre, to the roof of this building, in which are 18 
apartments. 

At the south end is a chamber, in which is a sculptured figure in 
stone which has been painted in red, blue, and yellow, and above are 
hieroglyphics sculptured in stone, which, he says, beyond all question bore 
the same type with those at Gopan and Palenque. 

2. A long majestic pile named, like that at Uxmal, the Palace of the 
Nuns, composed of two structures, one a wing to the other : the whole 
length is 228 feet, the main or principal front 112 feet ; this seems to 
be of solid masonry, a solid structure, the wing only having chambers. 
A grand staircase 32 feet high and 50 feet wide rises to the top, having 
39 steps. On the top stands a range of buildings with a platform 14 
feet in front extending all round them. For further description of 
this building and of the others, where I am deficient in it, I must re- 
fer to Stephens' book. 

3. What is known as the Eglesia or Church, which is 26 feet by 14 
feet, and 31 feet high, with two cornices, elaborate and rich in design. 
Over the doorway is a range of hieroglyphics, and above these stand 
out in bold relief, six projecting carved ornaments in stone, which as 



174 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

at the Governor's Palace, at Uxmal, he likens to elephants' trunks, 
but I do not see much resemblance to them. If they were so intended, 
where did the builder get them from ? 

4. A circular building called the Caracol or winding staircase. It 
stands on the upper of two terraces, the lower one 223 feet by 150 feet, 
the upper 80 feet by 55. 

A grand staircase 45 feet wide rises to the platform of the lower ter- 
race, and on each side is a balustrade with the entwined bodies of two 
gigantic serpents, three feet wide, parts of which were still in position ; 
and among the ruins, at the foot of the staircase, one immense head 
remains. 

The platform of the upper terrace is 80 feet by 65, and is reached 
by another staircase 42 feet wide, with 16 steps, on the last of which 
stands this circular building. 

It is 22 feet in diameter and has four small doorways facing the 
cardinal points. Above, the cornice has fallen a good deal, and the 
roof slopes so as almost to form a point. 

The height, with the terraces, is about 60 feet. Stephens said of 
this building, " it drew closer the curtain that already shrouded these 
mysterious structures ." 

5. An edifice with two immense parallel walls, each 274 feet long, 
30 thick, and 120 feet apart. In the centre of the great stone walls 
opposite each other, and twenty feet from the ground, are two massive 
stone rings, with a rim and border of two sculptured entwined ser- 
pents. The diameter of each hole left in the walls ornamented by 
these rings is one foot seven inches. Stephens called this and a simi- 
lar building found by him at Uxmal, gymnasiums, or tennis courts, 
from their being similar to a structure in the city of Mexico, 
described by Herrara; who says that Montezuma took much delight in 
seeing sport at ball in it, which the Spaniards soon prohibited. The 
ball was made of what could only be india rubber, and of those who 
played, he that sent it through one of these holes won. 

This ruined building, Stephens says, ' ' draws together the people of 
the city of Mexico, and those of Yucatan ; and alluding to a drawing 
of the Stone of Sacrifice in the Museum of Mexico already mentioned, 
he says, that the sculptures in the walls of a ruinous building described 
by him, near the tennis court, though differing in detail, are of the 
same general character with those sculptured on this stone. 

But the building most visible in Chichen is what is called the Cas- 
tillo. The ruins are much resorted to on a Sunday by the neighbour- 
ing villagers of Piste ; and the picturesque effect of this building is 
much added to by their presence . 

The mound or pyramid on which it is placed is on the north and 
and south sides 197 feet, on the others 202. It is built up from the 
plain to the height of 75 feet. 



APPENDIX. 175 

On the ground, at the foot of the main staircase, are two colossal 
serpents' heads in stone, ten feet long. 

The platform on the top is 61 feet by 64, and the building on it is 
43 feet by 49. 

There are doorways with sapote lintels and piers and elaborate 
sculpture and inside an apartment 13 feet wide by 17 high in which 
are two square pillars with sculptured figures on them. 

But from the lofty height of this chamber Stephens saw on the 
ground below, groups of small columns, which, on examination, he says, 
were found to stand in rows of three, four, and five abreast, many 
rows continuing in the same direction, when they were changed and 
pursued another. 

All were low, many only three feet high ; the highest not more than 
six feet ; and they consisted of several separate pieces like millstones. 
Many of them have fallen, all in the same direction, as if thrown down 
intentionally. In some places they extended to the bases of large 
mounds on which were ruined buildings and fragments of sculpture ; 
in others they branched off and terminated abruptly. Stephens counted 
380 of them, and there were many more. He could not make out — 
who can 1 — what they were intended for. 

MERIDA. 

The site of this city was covered before it existed, with ancient struc- 
tures. In one of the lower cloisters of the old Franciscan Convent 
there are two parallel corridors ; and the outer one, Stephens says, has 
that peculiar arch he so often met with, "two sides rising to meet 
each other, and covered when within a foot of forming an apex by a 
flat layer of stones." 

The Spaniards had doubtless made use of this part of an old pagan 
building, which they found standing and sound, in the construction of 
this corridor. This was seen and noted by Stephens, and tended to 
confirm a conclusion previously formed by him, and given to the world 
in both his books ; a conclusion more and more confirmed by his re- 
searches in Yucatan afterwards, a very small part of which only I have 
noted. 

He speaks in his last work, vol. 2, p. 444, of having discovered the 
" remains of forty-four ancient cities there, most of them but a short 
distance apart ; with but few exceptions all were lost, buried and un- 
known ; some of them, perhaps, never looked upon by the eyes of a 
white man." Among these, he describes and gives the following in his 
book, many of them with plates. All are easy of access from Merida, 
which is easy of access from New York and iS'ew Orleans, &c. May- 
apan, Ticol, Nohcacab, Kabah, Zayi, Sabach, Labnah, Kewick, Sacbey, 
Xampon, Labpak, Zibinocac, Iturbide, Macoba, Yukatzib, Zaccacal,. 
Akil, Mani, Silan, Ake, Yalahoo, Cozumel, Tuloom, Izamel. 



176 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

The reader of this paper must be told here, that before going toOcosingo 
and Palenque, Mr. Stephens had visited and describes in his book first 
mentioned, the ruins of Copan, Quirigua and Santa Cruz del Quiche. 
All three are in Guatemala. 

In the last named no hieroglyphics, statues, or carved figures were 
found ; and Copan and Quiriyua were, therefore, declared much older 
in date, and to have been cities of a race different from Santa Cruz 
del Quiche. 

At Copan were discovered many idols and altars of beautifully carved 
stone ; each was a monolith, and the idols were from 12 to 14 feet high. At 
Quirigua idols and altars were found, but much larger, and their sculp- 
ture not so distinct, it being, it was thought, a place of much older 
date than Copan. But at each place the idols and altars had hiero- 
glyphics on them, " of exactly the same style." Each of these places 
has pyramidal structures, and their monuments " are of the same gen- 
eral character." 

(For the form of these idols reference is made not only to Stephens' 
book, but to Chambers' Cyclopedia, vol. 1, title, America, American An- 
tiquities ; and on the latter subject generally to the American Cyclope- 
dia of D. Appleton & Co., vol. 1, already mentioned in this paper, and 
which I have found of much use generally.) 

In Stephens' book some of these hieroglyphics from Copan are 
copied — they are the same in character with those of Palenque, Ux- 
mal, and Chichenitza. In his first book, at page 454, he reproduces 
them (I am, by the permission of Messrs. Harper Brothers, allowed 
to copy them), to compare them with some manuscript hieroglyphics, 
published by Humboldt, which escaped the hands of the Spaniards in 
the City of Mexico, and are now preserved in the Library of Dresden. 
I reproduce both, in the plate in front of this page, that it may be 
judged whether, as Stephens says, they are alike. 

He draws the inference from the comparison, that the Aztecs or 
Mexicans, at the time of the conquest, had the same written language 
with the people of Copan and Palenque ; and if this inference be right 
those of Yucatan and Quirigua should be added. 

But this paper, already much longer than was intended, must be 
drawn to a close ; and in doing this the questions present themselves : 

Who are the builders of these ancient stone and other structures, 
and ancient cities, and where did they, the builders, come from ? 

Stephens says at p. 323, vol. 2, Yucatan, "These cities were, of 
course, not all built at one time, but are the remains of different 
epochs." 

Speaking of Ake at p. 444, he says, "It is strange that no mention 
is made of the buildings there by the Spaniards ; but no inference is to 
be drawn from it, for they marched close under the great pyramids of 
Otumba and yet made no mention of their existence." 

In this work, and in his previous one, he gives his belief, and many 



HIEROGLYPHICS SCULPTURED IN STONE 
AT CO PAN. 




:f»IJ®»§§ 




WRITTEN HIEROGLYPHICS. 

FOUND BY THE SPANIARDS 

In the City of Mexico. 



APPENDIX. 177 

reasons for that belief, among which is the one that Bernal Diaz and 
others of the Spaniards did describe these ancient monuments, in this 
and similar language : "Very well constructed buildings of lime and 
stone with figures of serpents and of idols painted upon the walls" — "idols 
with diabolical countenances" " high towers — sculptured ornaments — 
lofty temples with high ranges of steps ," &c. ; and his conclusion given 
again and again (p. 442, vol. 2, of his first work, and p. 445 of the second 
work, vol. 2), is this " That there is not sufficient ground for the belief 
in the great antiquity that has been ascribed to these ruins ; that they 
are not the works of people who have passed away, and whose history 
has become unknown ; but opposed as his idea is to all previous specu- 
lations, that they were constructed by the races who occupied the country 
at the time of the invasion by the Spaniards, or of some not very distant 
progenitors." 

He adds, in his last work, " Some were probably in ruins, but in 
general I believe that they were occupied by the Indians at the time 
of this invasion." And further, he says at p. 455, "they claim no 
affinity with the works of any known people, ' and he leaves them in the 
" feeble hope that his pages may in some way throw a glimmer of light 
upon the great and long vainly mooted question, who were the peoplers 
of America ? " 

Baldwin, whose work is on a great subject, part of which only is 
touched in this paper, says in his "Ancient America," " That there 
was communication between Eastern Asia and America in very ancient 
times, through the Malays or otherwise, is in a high degree probable. 
This continent was known to the Japanese and Chinese long before 
the time of Columbus. But neither the Malays, the Chinese, nor the 
Japanese came here as civilisers, for there is no trace of either of these 
people in the old ruins, or in the ancient language of the country, or 
in anything we know of the people whom these American ruins repre- 
sent," p. ]70. 

Brasseur de Bourbourg at p. 20 of his introduction, says, Gomara 
declares that at the time of the expedition of Cortes and Alarcon to 
the Pacific "they saw on the coast ships which had pelicans of gold 
and silver at the prow, also merchandize ; and they thought they were 
from Cathay and from China, because the sailors of the ships gave 
them to understand by signs that they had had a journey of thirty 
days." 

Speaking of the Colhuans, who, he says, seem to have been in some 
respects more advanced in civilization than the Toltecs, and were an- 
terior to them, Baldwin says, in his " Ancient America " : " In my 
judgment, it is not improbable that they came by sea from South 
America," page 200. 

Speaking of certain sciences, at p. 181, he says, " And they present, 
also, another fact, namely, that the antiquity of civilization is very 
great, and suggest that in remote ages it may have existed, with im- 
M 



178 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

portant developments, in regions of the earth, now described as bar- 
barous." 

At p. 184, he says, speaking of these ruins : ' ' The more we study 
them, the more we find it necessary to believe that the civiliza- 
tion they represent was originated in America, and probably in the re- 
gion where they are found. It did not come from the Old World ; it 
was the work of some remarkably gifted branch of the race found on 
the southern part of this continent when it was discovered in 1492. 
Undoubtedly it was very old. Its original beginning may have been 
as old as Egypt, or even farther back in the past, than the ages to which 
Atlantis must be referred ; and it may have been later than the be- 
ginning of Egypt. Who can certainly tell its age ? Whether earlier 
or later, it was original. " 

At p. 185, he says of them, " the culture and the work were wholly 
original, wholly American. " 

And at p. 246, speaking of the Peruvian civilization : " It may be, 
that all the old American civilization had a common origin in South 
America ; and that all the ancient Americans whose civilization can be 
traced in remains found north of the Isthmus, came originally from that 
part of the continent." 

At p. 221, he says : "If the country had never, in the previous ages, 
felt the influence of a higher culture than that of the Aztecs, it would 
not have now, and never could have had, ruined cities like Mitla, Copan 
and Palenque. Not only was the system of writing shewn by the 
countless inscriptions, quite beyond the attainments of Aztec art, but, 
also, the abundant sculptures and the whole system of decoration found 
in the old ruins." 

Prescott, in his " History of the Conquest of Mexico," so often re- 
ferred to, in his conclusion says, " The reader of the preceding pages, 
may, perhaps, acquiesce in the general conclusions — not startling by 
their novelty. First, that the coincidences are sufficiently strong to 
authorise a belief, that the civilisation of Anahuac was, in some degree, 
influenced by that of Eastern Asia. 

" And secondly, that the discrepancies are such as to carry back the 
communication to a very remote period ; so remote that this foreign 
influence, has been too feeble to interfere materially with the growth of 
what may be regarded in its essential features, as a peculiar and indi- 
genous civilization." 

But the latter part of the questions that have presented themselves 
in this paper, perhaps, involve this ; and it is much wider in its scope : 
Who were the original inhabitants of this part of America; how was the 
continent peopled? There are many theories upon the subject, and it 
is only proper shortly to give some of them. The original inhabitants 
of this continent have been regarded, according to one of these theo- 
ries, as a separate race, having no common origin like the rest of man- 
kind ; again their origin has been attributed to some antediluvians, 



APPENDIX. 179 

who survived the deluge in Noah's time ; and so they were held to be 
the most ancient people on the earth. They have been said to come 
from the sons of Noah, the Jews, the Canaanites, the Phoenicians, the 
Carthaginians, the Greeks, the Scythians, the Chinese, the Mongols 
(but they are perhaps included in the former), the Malays, the Japanese, 
Swedish, and the Welsh ; the last from the history upon which 
Southey's " Madoc " is written. 

And there is the theory about Atlantis, which was a large island, 
lying off the Pillars of Hercules in the Atlantic Ocean, first mentioned 
by Plato, who represents an Egyptian priest as so describing it to 
Solon : he gives a beautiful picture of this island, or part of this con- 
tinent or imaginary land (which was it ?). 

In Schlegel's "Philosophy of Life and Philosophy of Language." 
Bohn's edition, p. 81, he says : " Of the new world in the other hemis- 
phere, a trace unquestionably is to be found in antiquity, in the legend 
of the Island of Atlantis. The general description of this island, as 
equal in extent to both Asia and Africa together, agrees remarkably 
with the size of America. But the fable contains the additional cir- 
cumstance, that having existed in the Western Ocean in very ancient 
times, it was subsequently swallowed up by the waves. From this 
circumstance lam led to infer that the legend did not, as is generally sup- 
posed, owe its origin to Phoenician navigators, who, even if it be true 
that they did succeed in sailing round Africa, most assuredly never ven- 
tured so far westward. Like so much besides that is equally great and 
grand, and indeed far grander, the main fact of the legend seems to 
be derived from an original tradition from the primeval times, when 
unquestionably man was far better acquainted with his whole habita- 
tion of this earth, than in the days of the infant and imperfect science 
of Greece, or even of the more advanced and enlightened antiquity. A 
vague traditionary notion of its existence lived on from generation to 
generation. But afterwards, when even the Phoenician sailors, how- 
ever far they penetrated into the wide ocean, were unable to give any 
precise information about, or adduce any proof of the fact, the hypo- 
thesis was advanced, and finally added to the tradition, that the island 
had been swallowed up by the sea." 

I cannot refrain from adding here, as bearing upon the subject of 
this paper, the following surprising information, which a friend has 
just handed me, from the columns of a newspaper : 

" Evidence of probable intercourse between ancient Troy or its vicin- 
ity and Eastern Asia appears to have been substantiated by the Chinese 
Minister to Germany, the result of whose examination of a certain in- 
scription in Dr. Schliemann's collection is thus reported in European 
journals : — The Norddeutsclie Zeitung says that the Chinese Ambassa- 
dor at Berlin, Li Fangpao, well known in his own country as a great 
scholar, has lately read as Chinese the inscription on a vase found by 
Dr. Schliemann in the lowest stratum of his excavations at Hissarlik, 



180 A TRIP TO MEXICO. 

and figured on page 50 of the introduction to his ' Troy and Its Re- 
mains.' The learned Ambassador has thus confirmed the identifica- 
tion of the language of the inscription made six years ago by 
the eminent orientalist, Emile Burnouf, which was ridiculed at the 
time. Li Fangpao is quite confident that the unknown characters, 
which recur again and again on the Trojan antiquities, especially on 
the terra cotta whorls, are those of his native tongue, and gives, as the 
purport of the inscription, that about B.C. 1200, three pieces of 
linen gauze were packed in the vase for inspection. Burnouf 's French 
version (1. c, p. 51) also contained the words pieces d'etoffes. 'This 
vase,' adds the Norddeutsche Zeitunq, ' seems consequently to furnish 
a fresh proof of the active commercial intercourse, which the people of 
the ' Hyperboreans,' the Chinese, carried on with Greece and Asia 
Minor, a commercial intercourse as to whose route the Geographical 
Society here have just listened to a most interesting lecture.' " 

This paper must now be closed. Much that would add information 
on its subject is omitted with regret, as it is already much longer than 
was intended. 

Such as it is, it is left for those who may be good enough to read it, 
to aid them in forming and drawing their own conclusions, where 
needed. 

Thornwood, 31st Oct., 1879. 



INDEX TO THE APPENDIX. 



P^GE 

Ancient nations inhabiting Mexico 143 

Anahuatlacs (seven tribes) 144 

Ake 175, 176 

Akil 175 

Atlantis, Theory of 179 

Aztlan 144 

Aztecs and six tribes with them 143, 144, 145 

Baldwin's conclusions 177, 178 

Becher's, Rear Admiral, Landfall of Columbus, note 154 

Belus, Temple of 159 

Campeachy 154 

Cacique of Mani 155 

Chichen-Ttza 173, 174, 175 

Chichimecs 144, 145 

Cholula, pyramid of 158, 159 

Civilization found by Spaniards in Mexico ] 49 

Columbus' landfall, note 154 

Copan 176, 177 

Cozumel 175 

David and Uriah, counterpart of 148 

Dominion, extent of Aztec 1 50 

Druses, note 144 

Golden age of Tezcuco 145 

Government of Mexico, as found by Spaniards, &c 149 

Grijalva ] 55 



182 INDEX. 

PAGE 

Hieroglyphics 155, 173, 176, 177 

Huemac 144 

Human sacrifices 144, L53, 155, 157, 173 

Indian corn, nearly lost 145 

Iturbide 175 

Izamel , . . . 175 

Kabah 175 

Kewick 175 

Labnah 175 

Labpak 175 

League between Mexico, Tezcuco and Tlacopan 145 

Macoba 175 

Mani , 155, 175 

Mayas 154,155 

Mayapan 155, 175 

Merida 175 

Metre, 39 inches 37-100 162 

Mexican kings • 145 

Mexicans 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154 

Mitla 161, 162 

Mizantla 161 

Montezuma 150 

Nahuatlacs (Aztecs, &c.) 144 

Nezahualcoyotl 145, 146, 147, 148, 149 

Ocosingo 168 

Palenque 162 to 168 

Papantla 159 

Prescott's conclusions 178 

Priesthood 1 52, 153 

Quetzalcohuatl, or, Quetzalcoatl 143, ]44, 151, 155, 158 

Quirigua 176 

Sabach 175 

Sacvey * 175 



INDEX. 183 

PAGE 

Sacrifices : 144, 153, 155, 157, 173 

San Juan Teotihuacan 157 

Santa Cruz del Quiche 176 

Silan 175 

Stephens' discoveries in Yucatan 176 

" his conclusions 176, 177 

Teocaliof Mexico.. 153, 154 

Tezcuco 148 

Tezcotzinco 148 

Ticol 175 

Tlacopan 143, 145 

Tlapallan 154 

Toltecs 143, 144, 145, 155,156, 157, 161 

Trees, rings and marks on 1 56 

Troy, intercourse with E. Asia 179 

Tula 156 

Tuloom , 175 

Uxmal 168 to 173 

Xalahoo 175 

Xampan '. 175 

Xochicalco 159, 160 

Yalahoo 175 

Yucatan 154, 155, 156, 175, 176 

Yukatzib 175 

Zaccacal — 175 

Zayi 175 

Zibnocac 175 



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